


I burn at the ends (I learn to regret)

by stolemyslumber



Series: Mutant AU [1]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mutants, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-09
Updated: 2011-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-25 21:06:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stolemyslumber/pseuds/stolemyslumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mutant AU! In a time when those with powers are being locked away in facilities to control them, Ray has been careful to hide his power for years. When he gets caught and then rescued, he's brought into an underground band of people working for the resistance movement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings: Character death (off screen); non-consensual drugging and mental, physical, and psychic torture.**
> 
> For [War Big Bang 2011](http://warbigbang.livejournal.com/).
> 
> Mix & art by [enjoyelsilence](http://enjoyelsilence.livejournal.com/) can be found [here](http://sanguinet.livejournal.com/30839.html)!
> 
> Thanks to [siryn99](http://siryn99.livejournal.com/) for beta-reading, and [lakeeffectgirl](http://lakeeffectgirl.livejournal.com/) for beta-reading, cheer-leading, and telling me to stop thinking and just keep writing.
> 
> Title and lyrics quote from "In Our Darkest Hour" by Phantom Planet.

_yeah it began with a spark  
then a flame  
grew into a fire  
and spread out again_

 

X

The ground under Ray’s feet is moving faster than it should be. Gravel crunches under his sneakers, pounding out a rhythm to match the rasp of his breath.

He’s been going for so long it feels like he never started. He has always been running. He doesn’t know how to stop. He can’t remember.

There are no sounds behind him. He keeps thinking there will be, that the crunching gravel will grind under tires or the whir of helicopter blades will cut in under his gasps. It never happens. He goes in circles anyway. He can’t go leading them to the safest place he knows.

The raid started early. Usually they wait ‘til after curfew at eight, but Ray saw the first Org car cresting the ridge outside of town before he was even halfway home from debate practice. He’d made his way slowly to the edge of McCormack Park and then started off across the field out of town.

He wastes an hour or so all together, criss-crossing fields and roads, wandering in circles and through backyards, before making it to the creek. It’s sort of his safe haven, even though he knows enough to never believe anywhere in Nevada is really safe. He found it when he was a kid and looking for a place to hide. It’s nothing more than a creek cutting through a little valley surrounded by trees, but it’s just far enough from town and any roads that he’s almost invisible when he crouches down at the bottom of the big tree that hangs out over the water.

This was where he’d learned to use and hide his power. Later, it was where he and Walt would end up every day after school, sitting around and talking shit and half-assing their homework until they had to go home for dinner.

They stayed out later and later as they got older, until the raids began and the city-wide curfew was enacted. Now Walt’s gone and Ray tries not to do anything that might draw attention unless it’s absolutely necessary. Like now.

He sweeps some leaves away from the tree roots and tugs out the duffel bag hidden underneath. There’s money and emergency supplies at the bottom, and Ziploc bags full of snacks on top of that for when he gets drained after practicing. What he needs is right on top, though; a pair of cheap binoculars on a thick plastic strap.

He loops the strap over his shoulder and shimmies up the tree. He looks out in every direction. Nothing. He squints over at the road leading back to town. A little red Beemer powers over the last hill and out of sight. For a long moment, nothing moves.

It’s almost anticlimactic, the sleek black sedan coming over the hill instead of a tank or armored car. It leads a parade of Org vehicles, each one larger than the last. Third from the back, the containment truck rolls bare, no nets or dampeners in sight. The Org boys had no luck tonight.

 

X

Ray waits until the light starts to fade before he climbs down and starts home. He doesn’t pass anyone on the way; Nevada’s always subdued right after a raid.

His mom’s still not home when he comes up the back stairs. She works later than she used to, any excuse to avoid the house even though Ray spends all his time locked up in his room anyway. Things have been fucked up since everything that happened with Ray’s brother. Ray thought about moving out when he turned eighteen, but it’s not like there’s anywhere in Nevada he could move to and still finish school, other than the ten-room roach motel on the south side of town.

Ray cleans up, starts a load of laundry, and thinks about making dinner. They barely have any food in the house, but he finds a box of mac & cheese hiding at the back of a cabinet. The milk he bought on Monday is still good, and he finds half a stick of butter stuck behind the ketchup and hot sauce in the fridge. He waits until he hears her car in the drive, knocking over the trash cans he just dragged out to the sidewalk. Dinner’s ready by the time she finally stumbles inside.

He doesn’t ask where she’s been. There are only two bars in town, and she’s banned from Lou’s ever since she threw a pitcher through the big-screen when someone brought up Luke.

She leaves her shoes in the middle of the hallway and goes to the cabinets. He sets the table while she mixes herself a gin and tonic and makes her way to the table, glass in one hand and gin bottle in the other.

He eats while she drains half the glass in three swallows.

“‘Nother raid today,” she says, voice hoarse.

“Yep.”

“Didn’t get anyone, though.”

Ray doesn’t respond. She tops off her glass and pushes mac ‘n’ cheese across her plate with her spoon.

“They’re out there, though. Can’t hide forever.”

Ray chews.

“They’ll get the rest of ‘em soon enough.”

Ray’s mom turning drunkard was the talk of the town for a few months, when she started really hitting the bottle three summers ago.

“Can barely sleep at night, knowing they’re out there.”

Most people ended up feeling sorry for her, after Luke got picked up by the drones.

“Least I’m not under a roof with one anymore.”

They don’t know she’s the one who turned him in.

“You sleep just fine,” Ray says under his breath. She doesn’t hear him.

He covers her with a blanket after she passes out in front of Nancy Grace an hour later. He does the dishes and his homework and lets himself hit the boards for a few minutes when he’s done. He flicks the candle on his desk on and off while he scans for any big news.

The thread for disappearances is only a few posts longer than the last time he checked. Otherwise, things look quiet. It’s hard to know if that’s good or bad.

 

X

The raids started maybe five years before, when Hollis took office and spread his paranoia to the masses. They had all known it would get bad, but it happened so fast it was like no one even had a chance to stop it. Facilities sprang up like the concrete grew straight out of the ground, gleaming white and foreboding like the hideout of a shamefully uncreative Bond villain. And then the Org raiders started coming around.

At first they played it nice and cool. They just wanted to help. These poor people manifesting powers they couldn’t control, that would cause nothing but trouble. All it took was a few signatures and the problem was out of everyone’s hands. The Org would take care of it.

The pretense that the facilities were high-tech schools for people with superhuman abilities lasted all of five minutes, ‘til some kid escaped outside of Philly and went screaming to the press about straight jackets and modified electro-shock therapy. Experiments, he said. Torture. The Org was trying to get rid of their powers by any means necessary.

The kid was all of thirteen and Disney-channel-adorable, so the press grabbed hold of it and made it the sob story of the week. Parents betrayed, children traumatized, people held against their will. There was talk of disbanding the program.

Then some starlet got pregnant, and another fucking politician resigned over allegations from a freshman intern. The kid quietly went missing from the news and his parents’ backyard, and everything went back to the status quo.

Ray keeps quiet. He keeps control. If they catch him, it won’t be over some stupid mistake.

 

X

He’s home the next time the Org rolls into town. He doesn’t know they’re there until they’re already on his street. They’re close enough that he hears one of them thud into the massive pothole at the other end of the block over the Silverchair blaring out of his earbuds. He’s off the bed and against the wall without even needing to think about it.

They could be looking for Ray; they could be looking for anyone. They'll sweep houses until they find their target; if anyone questions it, they'll just say they saw something suspicious or the scanner picked something up or whatever they need to to justify breaking down a whole street's worth of doors.

All three of the search cars are creeping down the street when he peeks out through a gap in the curtains. He pulls on his shoes and ducks out into the hallway. If they’re all out front, he can duck out the back and through the Reillys' yard, and then it’s nothing but back alleys behind businesses that are already closed for the night until the edge of town.

The TV’s on. He stops at the bottom of the stairs, watching the blue-green light flicker across the furniture and listening.

His mom lets out a snore from her armchair just as he hears the boots coming up the stairs to the front porch. She’s passed out cold, but he’s stuck; he’s been meaning to fix it, but right now the back door creaks so loud he doesn’t know if he can get out without them hearing.

The pounding on the door doesn’t wake her; he knows the door creaking wouldn’t have, either. But it’s too late.

“Open up!” someone shouts over the knocking. Ray takes the steps two at a time going back up the stairs. He unlocks the window and waits for them to break the door down.

The knocking stops. He can’t hear anything over the murmur of the TV. He hears shouting and then a door slamming, but it’s not his. When he opens his eyes, the drones are climbing back into the third search car and following the other two down the street and around the block.

They don’t come back. He doesn’t go back to sleep until the sun’s starting to come up, too keyed up to even lie down.

 

X

He wakes up to quiet. There’s puke in the downstairs toilet, but the front door’s not quite closed and his mom’s shoes are gone. The car’s still in the garage, so at least she’s not driving.

The only time he leaves the house is to grab the Sunday papers off the porch. There are muddy bootprints from where the drones tracked through the empty flowerbeds and up the stairs. The Nevada Gazette runs through every single weekend activity anyone could possibly want to attend but, as usual, makes not even a veiled mention of the government coming in and kidnapping people the night before.

The Post-Dispatch is mostly focused on the still-tanking economy and Mayor Rooney’s reelection scandal. Ferrando’s face stares out at him under a headline on page three -- “COLONEL IN CHARGE OF ORG SECURITY SAYS BIG CHANGES COMING.” Ray’s stomach sinks. He reads the interview, but it’s nothing but vague descriptions of “new technological innovations” for increased security, capped off with a speech about Ferrando’s “continued dedication to keeping America safe.” From the glowing praise and flowery descriptions of Ferrando’s machismo, Ray can only assume the reporter followed up the interview by giving Ferrando a patriotic mouth hug on a bed of American flag sheets while the Star-Spangled Banner played in the background.

He thinks about going down to the creek. He hasn’t set anything on fire for more than a week and he’s feeling a little wired. But someone might see him.

He settles for filling up the bathtub and incinerating pages of the Gazette one by one until the paper’s gone and the water’s covered in ashes. He puts the Post-Dispatch in the recycling pile -- not because it doesn’t deserve the same treatment but because he’s getting bored and it’ll take a while for the smoke to dissipate -- and starts to read the eight million pages of Hamlet he’s supposed to have finished for Monday.

His mom’s not home by the time he goes to bed, so he leaves her a sandwich on a plate in the fridge and turns the porch light on.

 

X

The saddest part is that he’d heard the announcement over the loudspeaker and thought nothing of it. They haven’t had a raid in almost six weeks; ever since the Org tip line went anonymous, they’ve been averaging one every two weeks or so. Ray’s been keeping track, but he’d let himself believe they’d just had a lucky month with no good tips. He should have known something big was coming. He should have known Principal Cohen would welcome the Org in with open arms.

He should have been prepared for this, but instead he’s stuck at the top of the bleachers watching the end of the world walk through the fucking door.

It looks fine at first. Just another pep rally, most of the kids more excited to be getting out of second period than about the chances the football team has of actually scoring in their next game. The cheerleaders are in neat rows and Coach Ladd’s in his trademark short shorts and completely unnecessary whistle. Ray doesn’t notice the tension in Ladd’s face at first, or the way the teachers at the doors are paying way more attention to the lines of kids entering than they usually do.

It’s sloppy, to miss that. He’d be pissed at himself if he didn’t have bigger things to worry about right now.

By the time Ray stops focusing on his impending boredom long enough to look up and see the Org convoy pulling up outside through the windows at the top of the gym, the teachers are already pulling closed every set of double doors but one. Ray’s too far up the bleachers to sneak down unseen, and a pair of HAZMAT-suited soldiers has already set up by the open doors. Ray is, in a word, fucked. More fucked than a Boy Scout troop at a NAMBLA meeting. As fucked as he has ever been.

A parade of assholes in suits comes into the gym, dress shoes squeaking on the floor. The whole room falls silent.

Ray can’t move. He’s frozen on the bleachers, watching a whole contingent of Org drones come to take him away. They’ve got a full-size scanner with them. Ray’s a fast enough talker when he needs to be, but he can’t bluff a scanner.

The suits surround themselves with a ring of soldiers. A couple guys in med suits go to work on the scanner. All Ray can do is watch and try to fight down the sick dread welling up in his belly, fear and resignation and anger fighting for dominance.

They finish setting up. A microphone gets into the hand of one of the suits somehow; Ray doesn’t see anyone move. Ray tunes him out. He doesn’t need more reassuring bullshit platitudes about keeping them safe or overblown scare tactics about letting the terrorists win. Ray is less of a fucking terrorist than any of these assholes.

They start with the cheerleaders. They’re already in line, after all. One of them starts crying before they even get to her, shoulders shaking under her uniform.

Her name is Renee. She lives down the block from him and drives past him almost every morning when he’s walking to school. She never waves. He wants to burn the building down and escape with her. He sits on his hands instead, because he’s a coward and because the idea of hurting someone with his power is so foreign he’s not sure he could even do it if he tried.

The scanner lights up like a redneck’s backyard on the Fourth of July when they scan her. She goes quietly, letting them suit her up and lock her in without a word. She doesn’t try to look back as they lead her out the doors.

They park the remaining cheerleaders on the floor by the locker rooms and start in on everyone else. The other side of the gym goes first. Ray doesn’t recognize everyone who gets dinged. One of the football players, a couple of the quieter ones from marching band or maybe theatre. Jason Lilley, who was on the debate team for half a semester when he moved to Nevada the year before and is now some sort of star on the wrestling team. Six all together. Then they start on Ray’s side.

Ray watches them bring everyone up to form lines with a sort of hollow feeling in his chest. He’s known he was different for a long time; he’s known that was bad for almost as long. He’s not sure if having known this was coming makes it any easier. At least he’s not going to cry or make a run for it like the freshman they just tackled and trussed up in a dampening suit.

Things start to blur. Before Ray knows it, it’s his turn. The drone closest to him beckons him closer, impatient. Ray goes, chin up, jaw clenched.

He sort of expects it to hurt, but it doesn’t. It tickles, almost, and then it’s over and the machine is blinking bright again. Every gun in the room is on him. They spin him around and push him forward, and Ray wants to laugh. Ten years spent hiding and this is how it ends, up in front of the school like a cautionary role-play put on by a concerned parents’ group.

They cuff him. One of the drones brings a dampening suit forward, and Ray lets them put it on him without fighting. It’s made of this thick, stiff plastic, and he knows there must be an oxygen feed somewhere, but when they zip it up over his head there’s a moment when his breath feels stuck in his chest. He fights for air, fogging up the clear plastic mask. He can feel hands grabbing his elbows through the suit. They pull him toward the door.

 

X

When they get outside, his vision tunnels in until all he can see is the modified bus they’re leading him toward. The windows are blacked out, and through the open door he can see criss-crossing metal bars dividing the driver from the seats. The outside is a mess of dampeners and heavy-duty netting.

He’s the last to be taken out of the building, sandwiched between two blank-faced soldiers. He thinks the lead suit -- the one who gave the speech and the orders -- is behind him somewhere with his bodyguards. A handful of drones are gathered around the doors of the bus.

There’s someone else in a dampening suit by the bus doors, and two more are being led across the parking lot by more guys in suits. They’re heading toward two silver sedans that didn’t come with the rest of the convoy.

The drones pull Ray toward the bus. There’s a suit talking as they get closer, voice sounding fuzzy through the dampener.

“...taking these two as well,” he’s saying, tone leaving no room for argument. Ray can’t see out of his suit well enough to know who he’s talking about.

“Sir! I didn’t realize you were coming to supervise the mission, sir,” the lead drone says, coming around from behind Ray. He sounds like he’s about to shit his pants.

“I will be sure to let you know of all my plans in advance next time, Jarvis,” the suit says, derision dripping from his voice. He gestures to the two drones flanking him, nodding at Ray and the other mutant by the bus. Ray can’t see his face through the thick plastic of their masks. “These two. Jarvis, I need keys for the four we’re taking.”

“Four? What are you -- you’re taking -- sir, I don’t think...”

“Keys, Jarvis.”

“I was instructed that we were to collect all the mutants and proceed directly--”

“Plans change. And if I have to ask you for the keys again, you won’t need to worry about the rendezvous point.”

Jarvis scrambles to get the keys from the other drones so fast he almost drops them. He holds them out eagerly, like he’s expecting a pat on the head or something.

The suit turns and heads toward the cars. “Give them to Golby,” he says without looking back. Jarvis hands the keys over to one of the remaining suits.

New Guy’s drones gather up Ray and the other mutant, and they make their way across the parking lot, trailing after Golby.

At the cars, Golby moves ahead and slides into the passenger seat of the lead vehicle. Ray gets turned and pulled around the second car. They put him in the backseat, next to the head suit. There are guys in both the front seats, and someone else in a dampening suit on the other side of the backseat. The car starts and they pull out of the parking lot.

 

X

They drive for a while, making weird, almost random turns that don’t bring them any closer to the highway. Eventually they pull over on the shoulder of a gravel road. They sit. The two guys in the front share a bottle of water. Nobody says anything.

After a few minutes, the passenger side window rolls down, and a suit comes up and leans into the car, holding out two sets of keys.

“I hate this suit, man,” the guy says with a grin, shaking his head. He hands the keys to the guy in the passenger seat. “Fuckin’ white man’s uniform.”

“You hate it ‘cause it doesn’t fit you when you’re you,” the other guy drawls. “You’d have to grow about twelve inches for that to work.”

“I got twelve inches where it counts, dawg. Drive safe, motherfuckers. I’ll see you next month.”

He heads back to the lead car and climbs into the passenger seat. Where Golby had been sitting when they started out. Ray squints through the foggy plastic of his suit. That can’t be right, unless they’ve been playing musical chairs on the way to wherever the fuck they are.

The lead car pulls back onto the road and makes a u-turn, heading back toward the highway.

Passenger seat Texan turns around and hands one of the sets of keys back to the guy riding bitch. Texan leans across him and starts doing something to the other mutant’s suit. Ray turns to look at them and freezes. The guy next to him isn’t the balding asshole who ordered Jarvis around. He’s more of a kid, maybe a little older than Ray but not by much, with buzzed blond hair and wide green eyes, and he’s leaning in closer to Ray. The _fuck_.

Ray feels his suit move and looks down, craning his neck to try and see past the edge of the mask. The guy bites his lip in concentration -- Ray is momentarily distracted from wondering what the fuck is going on because god _damn_ his mouth is -- and then Ray’s suit is being unzipped.

The guy opens it up, pushing the stiff fabric back until he can tuck it behind Ray. He finishes unzipping it, all the way down to Ray’s feet, and then he reaches for Ray’s hands. Ray jerks back instinctively. The guy looks up and meets his eyes for the first time.

“Hey,” he says softly. “It’s okay. I just wanna get these off, okay?”

He touches the cuffs, tugging on them lightly without touching Ray’s skin. He waits until Ray holds his hands out and presses the key against the panel on the cuffs. They buzz and open with a click.

“I’m Nate,” the guy says, handing the cuffs up to someone in the front seat. “Are you okay? I know sometimes they bang you guys up when they’re putting the suits on.”

“I am fine what the fuck,” Ray says in one breath.

“We’re taking you somewhere safe,” the guy -- Nate -- says, with this beaming smile that’s probably supposed to be reassuring. Ray leans back a little further as the driver pulls back onto the road. They head in the opposite direction as the other car.

“Shit, brah,” someone says, “how’d you do that?”

Ray turns and sees Lilley on the other side of the car, suit open on either side of him like he’s a jock butterfly coming out of his cocoon.

“You were that other guy twenty minutes ago.” Lilley reaches out and pokes at Nate’s arm. “That’s _awesome_.”

“That’s one of my powers,” Nate says with a shrug, like becoming anyone he wants to be is no big deal. “Shape-shifting, I guess you’d call it. I’m Nate, by the way.”

“Jason,” Lilley says.

“Nate,” Texan says from the passenger seat. He taps his own eyebrow. Nate reaches up to touch his own.

“Oh,” he says, and then his eyebrows are suddenly smaller, lighter, less of a uni-brow. He laughs. “I always forget something.”

Lilley’s eyes are huge. “That is so cool. So you can be anybody?”

“With some practice, yeah. So what can you do?”

Lilley’s face closes off a little. “I can’t control it like you can.”

“It’s pretty new, huh,” Texan says, looking sympathetic.

Ray looks between them. They’re working Lilley like cops with a friendly suspect, like they’ve done this before. There’s never been any talk on the message boards about the Org using mutants to manipulate other mutants before, but there are always new lows for them to reach. And even if these guys aren’t with the Org, it’s not like Ray knows who they _are_ with or what they’re up to.

“I think it’s... sometimes electronic stuff is weird around me,” Lilley says. “Like, nobody can turn my iPod on except me. And I make our TV go crazy.”

“Yeah?” Nate says. “That’s really cool. We can help you get control over that, if you want.”

“That’d be cool,” Lilley says, sounding relieved.

Nate turns to Ray. “What about you?”

Ray just looks at him for a long moment. Lilley was easy. He doesn’t know how they’ll react if he makes things hard for them.

“I’m Ray,” he says, deliberately misinterpreting the question.

“Hi, Ray,” Nate says. Then he waits. The way the corner of his lip curls up in amusement makes Ray think he’s ready to wait for as long as he needs to.

“What’s his name?” Ray asks, jerking his chin toward the front seat.

“Mike Wynn.”

“And his?”

“Trombley.”

“And that other guy?”

“Poke.”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re going to get until we get there.”

Ray narrows his eyes. They pull onto the interstate heading east, blinker clicking in the silence.

“Look,” Nate says. “We’re going to drive for a while, until we get somewhere safe, and then we’ll all get some sleep, and we can talk about it tomorrow morning. Okay?”

Ray looks past him, where Lilley’s watching everything with an anxious look on his face, like Ray’s going to ruin everything and Lilley’s going to be stuck fuzzing up TVs for the rest of his life. These guys basically rescued the two of them. And nobody’s hurt him, and he’s miles away from his emergency bag and he’s not sure how far it would have gotten him, anyway.

“Okay.”

“Wait,” Lilley says, and Wynn makes a face at Nate like it’s his fault they picked the most annoying kids in all of Nevada, Missouri. “Wait, what about the bus?”

“What?” Wynn asks.

“The rest of them. Are they -- I mean, is the bus driver secretly taking them somewhere safe, too?”

Nate’s face goes guilty and sad. “We can’t,” he says quietly. “When we go in like we did, with me as a superior officer, just taking a few people, the drones usually just follow orders. I doubt Jarvis will be following up on any of this. If we waltz in and try to take over everything, it’s a big enough deviation from the plan that they’ll start asking questions.”

“So everyone on the bus is going to a facility,” Ray says. He should have burned the building down when he had the chance.

Nate looks uncomfortable. “That’s where the bus is headed, yeah. It’s the only way we can do this and not get caught.”

Ray meets Lilley’s eyes across the car. They know everyone on that bus, by face if not by name. Lilley’s face crumples a little. He turns toward the window.

Things are quiet for a while after that, except for the driver -- Trombley, a guy with big, deep-set eyes and a low voice -- asking where the next turn-off is. After a couple of hours, they pull off the interstate and drive about five miles out of their way to a tiny not-even-a-whole-town to get gas. They park on the opposite side of the pumps from the building, and Nate shifts back into the lead suit before he runs inside to pay.

When he comes back, he’s got a bag of snacks and some bottles of water that get passed around. Ray’s fiddling with a bag of pretzels when Nate recaps a bottle and says, “So, do either of you know anyone else with powers? Or someone you think might have them?”

Lilley thinks for a moment and then shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Some of my friends are kinda weird, but not weird like me.”

“That’s okay,” Nate says. “What about you, Ray?”

“Nope.” There’s no fucking way he’s giving up Walt’s name to these guys. He’ll stick around and see where this goes, since it’s the safest option right now, but he doesn’t want them trying to track Walt down.

Nate and Wynn exchange a look. Nate gives a little shake of his head.

“You sure?” Wynn asks Nate. Nate raises an eyebrow. Wynn nods. The fuck.

“Holy shit. Is that the other one?”

Nate turns to look at Ray, opening his mouth in question. Ray cuts him off.

“You said shape-shifting was _one_ of your powers, is your other one some sort of Vulcan mind-meld shit? Did you just read his fucking mind?”

Nate turns to look at Ray, searching his face.

“Did you just read mine?” Ray shoves himself back against the door, like that’s gonna do shit. Nate just raises a brow again.

“Get the fuck out of my head,” Ray snarls.

“This is important, Ray. If you know someone with powers, we can keep them safe.”

“You stay the hell away from him.”

“Relax, Ray. I didn’t even get a last name.”

Ray shoves Nate’s hand off his arm and leans into his space.

“Fuck you, how many people named--”

There’s this weird hopeful look on Nate’s face that makes Ray cut himself off abruptly. He squints at him, but the look is gone and Nate’s face is carefully blank.

“Did you get a first name?” Ray asks.

Nate’s mouth curves up in a delighted grin.

“He’s quick,” Wynn says, turning back to the road.

“Brad’s going to love him,” Nate agrees. He slants a look at Ray. “I don’t read anyone without permission. If you’re feeling something strongly, sometimes I can’t help but catch it. But thoughts I don’t listen in on without permission.”

Ray settles back into his seat, still uneasy.

“You should still tell us about your friend. We can help him.”

Ray makes a face.

“Maybe later, though.”

Ray just gives him a look, because fuck no. Wynn shakes his head in the front seat, but Nate just smiles.

“It’s cool. I wouldn’t trust Mike either.”

 

X

Ray watches the highway signs out the window as they pass. They drive for hours. Around sunset, Trombley and Nate run into a grocery store and come back with a bag of chips and sandwiches from the deli. Lilley falls asleep pretty soon after they finish eating. Ray tries to memorize exit signs and mile markers, but without a map it’s pretty much useless. They pass a big “Welcome to Kentucky” sign, and then they stop for gas again. Wynn goes in this time, hat pulled low over his face. Trombley keeps the engine running.

Wynn and Trombley switch seats when he comes back out. Ray watches Trombley slip sideways until he’s asleep against the window.

Ray wakes up to the sound of honking, a truck nearly sideswiping them as they merge back onto the interstate. They’re coming up on a big sign that thanks them for visiting Charleston, West Virginia. He drifts for a while after that, not really asleep but not awake enough to focus on where they’re going.

It’s maybe a couple hours later when they turn off the highway again. They turn and backtrack and turn again, down side streets and through empty industrial parks. He’s still groggy when they finally pull into the driveway of a little white two-story house in a long row of other little white two-story houses. He squints at the mailbox in the dark. It says 2451 on the side, but Ray missed the street sign. He knows they’re still in West Virginia, somewhere east of Charleston, but that’s as much as he’s sure of. They pull into the garage and Wynn kills the engine.

There’s a guy waiting up for them in the living room when they come in, this grinning beefcake-y guy who pulls Wynn into a hug that basically envelops his entire body. He releases him and turns to Nate; Wynn heads up the stairs to the second floor.

Nate slings an arm around the guy’s shoulders and leans into the hug. “Anything come up while we were gone?”

“All quiet, brother,” the guy says, patting Nate on the back and releasing him.

Trombley drifts closer sort of reluctantly. The guy nearly picks him up when he hugs him, squeezing him tight and then settling him back on the carpet. He turns to Ray and Lilley, and Ray takes a half-step back without thinking.

“I’m Rudy,” he says. “Welcome to the safe house of the week.”

“Jason,” Lilley says, and holds out a hand for Rudy to shake. Rudy clasps it between both of his and holds it.

“How was your drive?”

“Good,” Lilley says. They didn’t turn on any lights when they came in, but Ray thinks he can see a blush spreading over Lilley’s cheeks. “I slept most of the way.”

Rudy nods and releases him. “You’re lucky. I could never fall asleep in the car. What about you?”

Ray keeps his hands in his pockets when he answers, “Fine.”

“Room’s ready,” Wynn says from the top of the stairs.

Their room is at the end of the upstairs hallway -- two twin beds and a dresser, with a door leading to an attached bathroom. Lilley falls onto the bed by the door, kicking off his shoes and sliding under the covers. Ray pisses first, washes his hands, stares at himself in the mirror until he hears a door close down the hall.

Lilley’s asleep when he comes out. Ray pulls off his own shoes and climbs into the other bed. Nate comes in when he’s still trying to get comfortable. He’s carrying a bag, and he disappears into the bathroom. Ray hears bottles clicking down onto the counter and the soft sounds of cloth moving. Nate comes back out and lays a blanket across the foot of Lilley’s bed.

Ray says, “It’s fire.”

Nate looks up. “What?”

“I start fires sometimes,” he adds, not wanting to give everything away.

Nate just smiles. “Goodnight, Ray.”

Nate shuts the door behind him when he leaves.


	2. Chapter 2

X

In the morning, Nate and Wynn are gone. Rudy says they’re out gathering intel. Ray isn’t sure what that even means, other than that Nate’s promise to explain everything in the morning is bullshit.

Rudy tells him there’s milk and cereal or toast or whatever he feels like having in the kitchen, and Ray escapes before Rudy can give him a good morning hug or an information-sharing snuggle or whatever.

There’s a guy in the kitchen when he goes in, someone Ray hasn’t seen before, and he watches Ray open half the cupboards looking for a bowl with this sort of dry amusement that makes the back of Ray’s neck prickle. He finds a stack of bowls behind the second-to-last door he opens.

The guy takes a big crunching bite of his apple and slides open the drawer between him and the dishwasher. Ray looks. Silverware. He can only assume he’ll be required to talk about his feelings or recite his entire life’s story in sonnet form before he’s allowed to have a spoon.

But the guy just watches as Ray sets the bowl on the counter and takes a spoon from the drawer, and then he nudges it closed.

Ray’s debating whether it’s safe to reach past him to open the fridge when Wynn walks past the kitchen door, saying, “Brad,” and continuing down the hall. The guy turns to follow him.

“Cereal’s by the sink,” he says, tossing his apple core in the trash on his way out the door.

 

X

When Ray comes into the living room, mouth full of Apple Jacks, there’s no sign of anyone. He settles on the couch and waits.

A door opens next to the stairs after a few minutes. Rudy and kitchen guy -- Brad -- come out and head straight out the door into the garage. Ray hears an engine start up and then the garage door opens. There are blackout curtains over the windows, but he can hear the car backing out of the drive and heading off.

Trombley’s next. He gives Ray a nod and a “hey” and heads into the kitchen.

Wynn and Nate are last. They’re both wearing the same clothes they were wearing earlier and have serious bags under their eyes; Ray wonders if they went to bed at all. Wynn locks the door behind him and slides the key into his pocket.

“Goin’ to sleep,” Wynn says quietly.

“I’ll be up in a few,” Nate says, glancing at Ray.

Wynn heads up the stairs. Nate comes to settle on the couch next to Ray.

“You’re up early.”

“I don’t sleep well in strange places.” Ray tips the bowl back and drinks the speckled milk at the bottom, purposefully slurping.

“So this is the safe house,” Nate says, like a tour guide at one of those places where they churn butter in front of you.

“Okay,” Ray says, because obviously.

“And you can start fires,” Nate continues. “Brad, he’s the tall one, he can freeze things. Rudy has super senses -- he says his vision’s like binoculars, and he can hear people talking from a mile away.”

“So I guess I shouldn’t jerk off while he’s here.”

Nate lets out a startled laugh. “No, he turns it down most of the time. Otherwise just hearing us talk would be a little painful.”

Ray laughs along, but inside he’s thinking that living in a house with someone who can hear everything he does from across the house is more than a little freaky. “What about Trombley and Wynn?” he asks, trying to change the subject so he can stop thinking about it.

“Trombley can shape-shift, but into animals instead of people. Some days I think he spends more time as a cat than as a person. Wynn can shield; he makes a protective bubble around something or someone. Poke -- you sort of met him, when he gave us the keys to your suits -- he can shape-shift. I can shift and read minds.”

“Yeah, how’d you get two?” Ray asks. “Does that happen a lot?”

“No, it’s -- it’s kind of a long story,” Nate says, face closing off a little. “One that will have to wait, because I haven’t slept in about thirty-six hours. I’m going to head up to bed, okay? If you need anything, just ask Trombley. Brad and Rudy should be back in a few hours.”

 

X

Brad and Rudy don’t come back until late that night, after Lilley and Trombley have gone to bed. Ray’s laying awake staring at the ceiling when the car pulls into the drive. He hears doors closing and muffled voices downstairs; a few minutes later, the engine starts back up in the garage below him and the car heads out again.

The house is quiet enough that he can sort of make out what Rudy and Brad are talking about as they come upstairs. Something about a raid, and a hand-off, and something Poke said to Rudy about something. They’re past the bedroom and heading off down the hallway before he can get any more.

He lays awake for a while longer. There are quiet noises down the hall, water running and doors clicking open and shut. Ray keeps watching the red-glowing numbers on the alarm clock long after the sounds stop.

 

X

In the morning, Ray wakes up at the crack of dawn and can’t go back to sleep. He lays in bed for a while, listening for movement in the house. All he hears are birds that sound like they’re chirping with their little faces pressed up against the outside of the window for maximum volume.

Lilley’s still fast asleep, curled up in a ball in the middle of his bed. He’s wrapped up in the sheets and comforter like a burrito. Ray sort of wants to wake him up so he won’t have to sit around downstairs by himself. Maybe Lilley will wake up by the time Ray finishes eating breakfast.

There’s a cat sitting at the top of the stairs. Ray stops, kind of startled, and the cat just stares at him.

“Hi?” Ray says. They never had pets growing up, and now Ray’s having a really strong urge to pet the cat, but it’s not really a cat and that would be awkward for everyone involved. The cat’s tail flicks like it knows what he’s thinking.

Trombley darts down the hallway, past Ray and into his own room. A second later, the door clicks shut.

When Ray goes downstairs, Rudy’s crossing from the kitchen to the basement door, wearing nothing but sweatpants and looking like someone carved him a twelve-pack using nothing but marble and rainbows.

“Hey!” he says, more awake than anyone has a right to be at this time of the morning. “I’m heading downstairs to do some yoga and then meditate for a bit. Feel free to join me.”

He does yoga. Ray is shocked. Rudy’s waiting for a reply, so Ray settles on, “...’kay,” and heads for the kitchen as Rudy nods and unlocks the basement door.

He gets cereal again and parks himself on one end of the couch. He sort of wants to turn on the TV, but he still feels uncomfortable here, like if he hits the power button someone might hear the noise and come yell at him for touching their stuff.

The house is still quiet when he finishes eating. He’s not even sure who left after Rudy and Brad came back the night before, or whether they came back. But no one who’s home is doing Ray the kindness of coming downstairs to entertain him.

He wanders back into the kitchen, going to put his dishes in the dishwasher, but he gets sidetracked by the stovetop espresso maker sitting on the counter. There are canisters of grounds and sugar next to it. He debates for a minute, but there’s no coffeepot, and Rudy had said he could have whatever he wanted from the kitchen.

He snoops a little while he waits for it to brew, opening cabinets and drawers. Everything looks like normal house stuff, mismatched place settings and tchotchkes and three incomplete sets of measuring spoons. There’s a flower theme to the curtains and towels, and Ray wonders if the guys actually live here and whose house it is if they don’t.

The pot starts to gurgle and Ray turns the burner off. He fills up two mugs and tucks the sugar canister under his arm.

He finds himself heading down instead of upstairs, toes curling when his bare feet hit the cement at the bottom. Rudy’s on a rug in the middle of the room, doing some ridiculous thing with one leg stretched high in the air. He eases himself out of the pose until both feet are on the ground.

“That smells amazing,” Rudy says, stretching both arms up over his head.

“I didn’t know whose coffee it was,” Ray says, unsure. Rudy takes one of the mugs carefully.

“I’m the one who bought it, because the rest of these heathens would be buying instant coffee crystals in bulk and covering up the lack of taste with more sugar. But everything in the kitchen is free for the taking.”

Rudy sets his mug on the table and proceeds to drop onto the floor and start twisting himself into a position a man of his size shouldn’t possibly be able to manage. Ray stands kind of awkwardly by the door and sips his coffee.

“I’ve got a few more poses to run through and then I’m going to do some deep breathing exercises,” Rudy says, not sounding the least bit strained or uncomfortable. Ray considers staring at the maps tacked to the wall until he finishes, but Rudy seems oblivious to Ray’s staring, stretching himself even further into the pose.

Eventually Rudy settles back onto both feet, grabs his mug, and drops to the ground. He takes a sip and sets the mug next to him on the floor. He closes his eyes. Ray waits until Rudy’s breathing evens out before he sits down on the rug.

It’s harder than usual to focus. He can get his breathing nice and steady just fine, unconsciously matching the cadence of Rudy’s inhales and exhales. But he’s in a strange place, hearing someone else’s breathing instead of the sound of the creek or his iPod. He keeps getting distracted by the sound of a door closing upstairs or how he can feel the chill of the cement through the rug.

It was like this when he first started. Someone on the boards started making epic late-night posts about Taoism and karma and how meditation was the only way to be at peace with yourself. Ray was kind of desperate at that point, so he’d gone to the library and sat between the stacks reading the only book on meditation they carried.

He’d gone into it expecting “ohms” and pretentiousness, but it ended up being exactly what he needed. There was a lot about focusing on the right things, on seeing yourself as a part of the universe as a whole. Which is a little cheesy, but if Ray thinks of himself as just his power, and the universe as everything his power connects him to, it actually really works.

Except for right now. Ray concentrates on pushing everything else out of his mind. The floor is cold. It’s not important. People are starting to move around upstairs. They’re not important. Rudy’s breathing, deep and slow, on the other half of the rug. He’s not important. All that matters is the low hum of awareness inside of Ray. He doesn’t need to think about or feel anything else. He is his power, and his power is more than him. He is tapped in to everything around him.

He feels his body relax for the first time in days. All the tension and worry fades ‘til it’s nothing.

When he comes back to himself, Rudy’s not in front of him anymore. He hears soft voices by the stairs and tries to keep his breathing even.

“Sorry I missed the warm-up,” Brad’s saying.

“It’s okay,” Rudy says. “I had some company, anyway.”

“I see that,” Brad says, sounding amused. He raises his voice slightly. “You think he’s faking?”

“Nah, he was under for maybe half an hour,” Rudy says, and Ray knows he must have noticed when Ray’s breathing changed and is politely not mentioning it.

“Huh. Well, everyone’s home for once.”

“Nate’s up?”

“Mike, too. Someone just needs to wake up Trombley in a way that won’t lead to him whining about lost sleep for the whole meeting.”

“And by someone, you mean...”

“Please make some more coffee so we don’t have to suffer.”

“I swear, he must sleep twelve hours a day.” The stairs creak as they both start upstairs.

“More, even. He really is like a cat. The next thing we know he’s gonna be falling asleep on top of the radiator.”

“Did Nate and Mike come back with anything?” Rudy asks, but the basement door closes behind them before Brad answers.

Ray leans back, stretching out on the rug.

 

X

Nate and Brad are gone the next morning. Ray’s up at dawn again, but he waits on the couch upstairs while Rudy meditates. The morning before, he hadn’t even heard Brad come downstairs. It’s freaking him out a little.

Wynn comes down the stairs just as Rudy’s coming out of the basement and heading upstairs to shower. Lilley gets up eventually, shuffling down the stairs and scrambling himself what looks like an entire carton of eggs. He settles next to Ray. The TV clicks on as he gets situated.

“They don’t have any ketchup, brah,” Lilley says. “What kind of secret underground hideout is this?”

Ray shakes his head sadly. “The rebel alliance ain’t what it used to be.”

They watch CNN as Wynn goes down to the basement and back up a few times. Ferrando’s giving another sound bite about how all they’re trying to do is protect everyone. Ray’s still not sure why they never hired an Org spokesperson who doesn’t sound like the Cryptkeeper, but Ferrando’s definitely a good liar. He has this weird sort of charisma that almost makes Ray want to believe him.

The hosts of the show go back and forth about whether the latest mutant-related developments from the Org and from Washington are taking things too far. Of course the facilities are necessary -- Lilley, mouth full of eggs, raises his middle finger at the screen -- but one of them thinks Senator Blake’s proposed updates to the Mutant Registration Act are extreme enough that, if they’re attached, the act might not get renewed.

They cut to commercial without giving any actual information about what tech updates are happening in the facilities or what exactly Blake wants to send through with the renewal. Holly Baxter’s hair looks great, though, so they basically break even.

The last time Wynn comes upstairs, he grabs the remote and tries to mute the “puppies inexplicably singing about toilet paper” commercial that’s playing. The sound stays stubbornly on.

“Sorry,” Lilley says around his last forkful of eggs.

“It’s okay. We actually wanted to talk to you about this.”

Rudy comes down the stairs, Trombley right behind him. “Hey! We’d like to run through some exercises, see what you two can do,” Rudy says, gesturing toward the basement door. Lilley jumps up and heads for the door.

“You coming, Ray?”

Ray shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good.”

Wynn comes to stand next to Rudy. “Sorry, but that was more of a rhetorical question. We really need to know where the two of you are in terms of control.”

Ray reluctantly follows Rudy and Trombley and Wynn down the stairs. The closet in the corner is open, and the others are pulling the table into the middle of the room and setting up some folding chairs. Ray sees a stack of dampening suits in the closet before they shut the door.

They start with Lilley, like they think Ray’s just nervous and he’ll calm down if he watches someone else go first. Ray settles into one of the chairs. Wynn sits next to Lilley in the middle of the room, talking quietly to him.

They’ve got an old radio setup spread out on the table. Ray wasn’t planning on paying attention, but he’s starting to feel a little curious.

Wynn gestures at the radio, soft words rolling off his tongue, and takes a step back. Lilley stares intently at the radio, forehead screwed up in concentration.

Nothing happens.

Wynn starts up the pep talk again, and Lilley nods and refocuses.

Ray tilts his head back against the wall and tries to ignore them. He lasts until Lilley lets out a little noise of frustration before he gets up and crosses the room.

“Just let Ray go,” Lilley says, shaking his head. He gets up. “I don’t know how to make it work.”

“Sit down,” Ray says. Lilley sits. Ray picks up the radio and takes it apart with quick movements. He goes over every piece, and then he puts them back together, explaining as he goes. He clicks the faceplate back into place and holds the radio up. “Okay. So I bet when you’re trying to turn it on, you’re just thinking about hitting the “on” button, right?”

Lilley nods. “Yeah.”

“But the button’s just a little piece of plastic. The part you control is on the inside. You need to think about --”

The radio clicks on in Ray’s hands. Rudy lets out a whoop and Lilley’s grinning and Wynn looks at Ray with a calculating look in his eyes.

“You’re the Lilley whisperer,” Trombley says from his chair. Ray’s willing to bet he slept through everything that just happened.

They decide after Lilley turns the radio off and back on a few more times that they shouldn’t over-do it. Rudy says something about the harmony of the universe that Ray translates to mean all their tech will go haywire if they push Lilley too hard.

Then it’s Ray’s turn. He plays along, sort of, telling them he’s been accidentally starting fires for a while. He can almost hear the wheels turning in Wynn’s mind; Ray knows he’s thinking Ray will start to trust them if they can give him the gift of control.

They set an unlit candle on the table in front of him. The corner of Ray’s mouth twitches upward before he can stop it. He looks at Wynn, but he’s busy moving the radio off the table and onto the floor by the door.

Ray pretends to listen to Wynn’s pep talk, but mostly he’s getting ready to fake the intense focus of a guy who has no idea how to light things on fire with his mind but is trying really hard to figure it out.

“Okay,” Wynn says, “now I want you to focus on the wick. Think of something that works for you -- maybe you’re pulling the flame out of the candle, or pushing the fire from yourself into the candle. Maybe you’ve got some flint and steel and you’re building a fire.”

 _Maybe the energy already exists in the universe and I just need to find it and I’m basically quoting Rudy’s entire life philosophy holy mother of god,_ Ray thinks, which distracts him enough that he doesn’t roll his eyes at the whole flint thing.

Ray makes a big show of scrunching up his eyebrows and biting his lip in fake concentration. Nothing happens, of course. The others are practically holding their breath and their hard-ons in anticipation. It’s almost cruel to disappoint them like this. Ray’s going to have to, though, because there’s no way he’s falling into this trap of letting them help him in order to gain his trust.

“It’s not working,” he says, trying to sound disappointed. Wynn gives him a long look.

“What are you thinking of?” he asks.

“The flint thing,” Ray says, trying on some of Nate’s earnestness for size. He can be other people too, if he wants to be. “Maybe it’s because I’ve never made a fire before.”

“We should try that,” Lilley agrees. “Do you guys have a fireplace?”

Ray actually feels like a pretty big douche for lying to Lilley, who’s basically in the same boat as him and has been nothing but nice. He resigns himself to at least a couple days of Lilley offering up useless solutions to Ray’s sparking problem.

“No, brother,” Rudy says. “You just need to really feel it. Focus on yourself. Focus on the way you feel. Do you feel that flame inside you? It’s everywhere. It’s part of the universe. It wants to work for you.”

That is actually... eerily accurate, so Ray ignores it and squints at the candle again. He thinks about putting his fingers to his temples, but he figures that would be so cliche even Lilley would catch on. He clenches his fists and glares. After a long moment, he relaxes, shaking his head.

“I can’t,” he says. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“It’s okay,” Wynn says. “We’ll keep trying.”

He drops a book of matches on the counter.

“Let’s try these. Picture striking one of them against the matchbook. Think of the sound it makes when it starts up. Think of the way the smoke smells.”

Ray barely holds back a groan. He needs to find a way to seem hopeless enough that they’ll stop trying. He puts his “constipated and desperately trying to take a shit” face back on. He’s working his way up to his best Blue Steel when he feels a nudge of cold. He pushes back without thinking, nudging the cold away with his own thread of warmth. The coolness comes back, wrapping around him and tugging, and Ray turns.

Brad’s leaning against the frame of the door, watching him with a smirk on his face. He raises an eyebrow and lets Ray have one long moment of absolute panic before he turns to Rudy and Wynn.

“Nate will be back in ten.”

“We’ll get set up,” Wynn says, grabbing the candle and matchbook off the table. “Sorry, Ray. We’ll pick this back up tomorrow, okay?”

“Can’t wait!” Ray enthuses. He turns to flee up the stairs.

Brad shifts to the side just enough to be in Ray’s way. “How’s practice going?” he asks.

“Lilley had a breakthrough,” Ray answers.

“Yeah? That’s good.”

Ray meets Brad’s eyes and Brad holds his gaze, eyes searching. “Yep. I’m not having much luck though.”

“We’ll have to work on that.”

Ray nods. He would agree to anything right now. “Sure.”

Brad steps to the side and lets Ray pass.

 

X

“How come you know so much about radios and stuff?”

They’re upstairs; Lilley’s paging through an issue of People magazine with scandals from three years ago on the cover, and Ray’s carefully pencilling over the incorrect answers in a book of crosswords. The bookshelf in the living room is sadly lacking in anything closer to good reading material, and Ray is so bored he’s started joining in on the yoga part of Rudy’s morning routine just for something to do. He mostly watches Rudy contort himself into increasingly ridiculous positions while Ray attempts to get past the sixth pose of the sun salutations.

Ray rolls over onto his stomach. “My grandpa taught me. I used to go to my grandparents’ house after school until my mom came home from work, ‘cause my brother was in like every sport imaginable so he always got back late, and they didn’t trust me not to get into trouble on my own.”

“Probably a good decision,” Lilley says, and Ray could point out that he’s stopped on a two-page spread of celebrity wedding pictures, but he decides to be the bigger man and let it go.

“ _Anyway_ , so my grandma was always making me snacks and asking me how school was going and trying to get to know me and stuff, and I was this dumb little kid who wanted to go outside and play in the dirt instead of hang out with old people. My grandpa was around sometimes, but most of the time he would be down in the basement when I got there and would only come up for dinner.

“I didn’t care at first, I thought he was just doing puzzles or watching TV or whatever old people do. But then I got bored, and then I got curious, and so I went downstairs one day and he was sitting at this worktable with tools and parts and wires all around him. He looked up and he had one of those little microscope eyepiece things that flip down over your eye. I was like, holy shit, my grandpa is building robots.”

Lilley snorts. “Robots. That would’ve been awesome.”

“Yeah, I was kinda disappointed when I found out it was just radios.”

“Like what if secretly he built his whole family out of robots, and he was the only human, and that was the day you found out you were some sort of Pinocchio experiment thing?”

Ray stares at him.

“What? That would be cool. You’d be all invincible like the Terminator. You could save people from burning buildings and stuff.”

“I’m pretty sure metal melts in fire, Lilley.”

“You know what I mean, dude.”

“Yeah. It would have been cool. But anyway, so I spent like two years in my grandpa’s basement after school, learning how to fix broken radios. He worked in a repair shop for a long time when he was younger. He did TVs and VCRs and shit, too, but he only worked on radios after he retired. He had big storage bins full of parts and broken radios.

“I don’t even know why I stayed down there at first. I was curious, and then it was actually pretty cool. He started telling me stories about all the shit he got up to when he was a kid. He said my grandma wouldn’t date him at first because he had a bad reputation. He had to court her for like three years before she even went on a date with him.”

“So what happened?” Lilley asks.

“What d’you mean?”

“You said it only happened for two years. Did he, um.” Lilley cuts himself off, looking uncertain.

“He had a heart attack when I was nine. My grandma sold half their stuff and moved to Florida to live with my aunt.”

“That sucks. I’m sorry, dude.”

“It’s cool. I mean, yeah, it does suck. I think if I ever got up the courage to tell anyone about having a power, I would’ve told him, and I think he would’ve been okay with it. Maybe not so much in general, but ‘cause it was me.”

“He sounds awesome. Wait, so you mean you never told _anyone_?”

The thought alone makes Ray’s stomach clench a little in fear. “No. No, no. I mean, you know what Nevada was like. And I knew my mom was never gonna be okay with it. I had this friend, we were best friends for a long time, and I almost told him a bunch of times, but I always chickened out.”

“Someone from school?”

“Yeah, but he left before you moved there. I think... I mean, I don’t know if it was the Org or if he just decided to leave, but I think he must’ve had a power too and we were always too scared to tell each other. One day he was just gone. And then after that, I got kinda paranoid. We had this little group of friends, and I thought maybe one of them caught him or something and ratted him out. I stopped talking to everyone.”

“Oh. _Oh_ , that was sophomore year, right?”

“My sophomore year, his junior, yeah. You heard about me going crazy, huh?”

Lilley shakes his head. “Nah, dude, people just said you used to come to parties and stuff, and then you just stopped. I got warned not to talk to you.”

Ray makes a face. “Yeah, that’s ‘cause I almost got suspended for fighting, but it’s not like I would’ve punched anyone in the face just for talking to me.”

“You sure? ‘Cause I remember you’d get this look on your face sometimes like you wanted to stab things.”

“Ms. Calendar said I had anger issues,” Ray says, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, dude, she was hot though. Like a teen movie guidance counselor instead of a real one.”

“She was cool,” Ray says. “She kept trying to get my mom to come in for a counseling session, though. I tried to tell her it would never work.”

“Your life sounds way more exciting than mine,” Lilley says, moving to sit at the edge of his bed closest to Ray.

“I spent like four years expecting the Org to come break down my door every night.”

“Okay, but you -- I mean, okay. Yeah, that sucks. And. And your friend, and your grandpa, and your brother --”

“Can we not,” Ray starts, chokes on his own words, swallows thickly. “I don’t really want to talk about Luke, okay?”

Lilley’s face goes sad and wounded. He starts to say something, but Ray shakes his head.

“Don’t apologize, it’s fine, it’s just...”

“No, I get it.”

They’re both quiet for a long moment.

“I think I saw a deck of cards in one of the kitchen drawers when I was snooping the other day,” Ray finally says. “You know how to play poker?”

“Yeah, brah. I don’t have any money to play for, though.”

“Me neither. You’ll just have to let me take your dignity instead.”

Lilley tries to tackle him on the way out the door.

 

X

Everyone’s in and out over the next few days. They always go in pairs, and most of the time they look nothing but disappointed when they come back.

One morning, Nate disappears and doesn’t come back that night. Everyone acts like it’s business as usual, but Ray can see the tension Rudy can’t quite get rid of with his morning yoga, and when he comes into the living room early the next morning, Wynn’s asleep in the armchair by the door, like he fell asleep waiting up for Nate.

Nate comes back when they’re about to eat lunch the next day. He looks like he hasn’t slept at all, but there’s an excitement thrumming through him Ray can almost feel.

They have a big meeting in the basement that Ray and Lilley aren’t invited to. When they come back up, Nate pulls Ray and Lilley into the kitchen. He says that one of their friends was taken by the Org, and they’re going on a mission to get him back. Ray and Lilley aren’t invited to that, either. Trombley is going to stay and babysit them while the others go out and get themselves caught and arrested and locked in a facility forever.

Nate says Trombley knows what to do if they don’t come back, that there’s a bag tucked away with a pre-paid cell and some money inside. If things go bad, Trombley will get the bag and get them out. Ray feels incredibly reassured. They have a back-up plan; clearly these people aren’t crazy at all.

Everyone packs their stuff. If things go bad, the others won’t come back to the safe house, in case they’re followed. They’ll get out of the city and wait for Trombley to call them. Trombley, Ray, and Lilley pack, too; Ray and Lilley share a duffel, with nothing more to pack than the toiletries Nate gave them the first night and the few sets of clothes and pajamas Wynn had gone out and bought for them.

The others leave that night. The three of them sit in the living room for a while and watch the door. Eventually, Ray and Lilley launch an epic xBox battle to distract themselves, and Trombley shifts into cat form and hides in his room to sulk over getting left behind.

Around midnight, Grand Theft Auto Wherever stops being enough of a distraction. Trombley, back in human form, comes down the stairs right as Lilley’s reaching to turn off the TV, and they sit on the couch together like defendants waiting for a verdict. Trombley sets the prepaid cell the others left them on the coffee table. Ray can’t decide if he wants it to ring or not.

Trombley falls asleep on Ray’s shoulder sometime around one a.m., which is sort of adorable in a creepy way. He doesn’t snore or drool, so Ray lets him be. Lilley goes to the bathroom and settles closer on the couch when he comes back.

Ray fights his heavy eyelids, but eventually he drifts off. He jerks awake sometime later, nearly dislodging Trombley and Lilley from where they’re leaning against him, fast asleep. He squints through the darkness into the kitchen, where the clock on the microwave says it’s 3:23.

He looks around for movement, for Brad and the others returning. He leans forward to click a button on the phone. No messages or missed calls. Then a whirring sound filters in over the quiet noise of the house. There’s a helicopter above them.

Ray shakes Lilley and Trombley awake.

“Wh--” Trombley gets out before Ray smacks a hand over his mouth. Trombley glares. Ray jerks his chin at the ceiling. Trombley’s eyes go wide when he hears it.

Trombley grabs the phone and they all head for the back door. They’re at the top of the stairs outside when the noise drops low, louder, and then abruptly begins to fade. Ray can see the lights now that they’re outside, blinking merrily off into the darkness.

The sound of the locks clicking back into place seems crazy loud as they go back inside.

“Motherfuck,” Ray says once they’re back on the couch. “What the fuck do we do now?”

Now that the adrenaline’s wearing off, he kind of feels like an asshole for waking everyone up. The helicopter probably didn’t even get all that close to them.

 

X

Ray’s in the kitchen making coffee when they come back. He comes into the living room, empty mug in one hand and sugar in the other.

They all came back. No one’s locked away in a facility, but they don’t have anyone new with them, either. Everyone looks tired and angry; Rudy sort of looks like he wants to murder someone with his eyes and maybe a large number of toothpicks.

“Did you find him?” Trombley asks, and Ray knows he’s half awake and therefore a little dumber than usual, but really now.

Wynn shakes his head. “We didn’t even get close. Almost like they were waiting for us.”

“We barely got out of there,” Nate says, dropping down on the arm of the couch next to Lilley. He shakes his head. “We need to figure out what went wrong.”

“We need to check our sources,” Brad says.

“And our approach. We’ve covered all the outside surveillance we know of, but maybe they’ve got something new up and running already.”

Brad darts a glance over at Ray and Lilley. Nate stands up and jerks his chin toward the basement. “Let’s have a quick debrief and head to bed.”

Trombley follows them downstairs. Ray goes back to the kitchen and is putting the coffee away -- maybe a little forcefully, he’ll admit -- when Lilley hops up on the counter next to him and says, “What’s wrong?”

Ray shakes his head. “Nothing, dude. Just mad we stayed up late for nothing.”

Lilley gives him a long look. “What do you think they were doing out there?” he asks.

Ray shrugs. “Trying to get that guy back.”

“No, I know, but -- where did they even go?”

“I don’t know. And they’re not going to tell us, if that little closed-door pow-wow is any indication.” Ray shuts the cabinet door. “C’mon. Let’s just... go to bed, I guess. Your bed’s probably more comfortable than my shoulder.”

Lilley hops down from the counter and gives Ray a little shove toward the door. “Yeah, brah, you’re nothing but skin and bones. I think I dreamt I was sleeping on a porcupine.”


	3. Chapter 3

X

Everyone sleeps in the next day, even Ray. When he stumbles downstairs around nine, the basement is empty and the kitchen’s undisturbed. He pops a couple waffles in the toaster and starts some coffee brewing.

Rudy’s on his way downstairs right as the coffee’s done, calling down about how good it smells. It’s still kind of weird, knowing he could probably tell what Ray’s having for breakfast from the top of the stairs. But it’s probably more than a little disconcerting for the others to think Ray might light their hair on fire or burn down the house by accident.

Rudy has his usual breakfast of wheat toast and egg whites, but he hangs out in the kitchen sipping his coffee instead of heading downstairs. Ray raises an eyebrow in question.

“We’re having another practice session once everyone’s awake,” Rudy says. He gives Ray a measuring look. “We’d like to work on your control a little more.”

Ray can’t quite hide his cringe. He’s not up for another session of pretending. But there doesn’t seem to be any way around it, and after an hour or so of trying to come up with a good excuse while they wait for everyone else to wake up, Ray is forced to follow the others downstairs. Trombley’s still in the kitchen waiting for more coffee to brew, but everyone else lines up along one wall of the basement.

They start with Lilley. There’s a dampening suit on the table this time, spread out and empty. Lilley kind of cringes away from it at first, but then Wynn explains that they’re hoping he’ll be able to unlock the suit, so he can help them on missions. If they don’t need to get keys for the suits, they could vary the plan and rescue more people.

Wynn goes over how the suit works, like Ray did with the radio. Lilley leans over it, studying it with a fierce sort of concentration. It takes him a while of trying, of Wynn going over the locking mechanism in more detail, but eventually the lock pops open.

The anticipation in the room slides into pure happiness, everyone whooping and congratulating Lilley. Lilley grins at Ray from across the room, and he can’t help but grin back. It’s awesome progress. He tries not to think about how this means Lilley’s turn is almost up.

He expects Wynn to have Lilley unlock the suit a few more times and call it a day. He does re-lock the suit three or four times, and it gets easier each time for Lilley to click the lock back open. But instead of ending the lesson there, Wynn pulls out another suit. Nate helps him lay it across the table next to the first.

“Okay,” Wynn says. “Now let’s try it with two.”

The excitement on Lilley’s face fades into uncertainty. Ray half expects someone to rein things in, for Rudy to start talking about harmony and balance again. No one says anything. Lilley swallows and studies the suits, psyching himself up.

Wynn moves closer and starts talking again, gesturing at the suits. Lilley’s nodding, staring intently at them. Nothing happens.

They try again, and again. Ray waits for Wynn to decide they’ve done enough for the day, but he just keeps pushing. Lilley’s getting frustrated. Wynn’s pep talk doesn’t seem to be doing anything for him. There’s a clicking sound suddenly, but the suits don’t unlock. Wynn leans over the table, watching the lock mechanism.

“You’re trying to lock it further,” he says. “Push it the other way.”

“I’m trying,” Lilley grits out, and then both suits click open at once. Wynn’s eyes go wide with surprise and excitement. There’s another click, and they’re locked again. The clicks start up with a steady rhythm, unlocking and locking over and over. The noise turns into a grinding metallic sound, and then Lilley’s stumbling sideways. Nate darts over to catch him, and Rudy flips the suits over, fumbling at the back. The noise stops after a moment.

Nate sits Lilley down, and Lilley starts apologizing. Nate and Wynn tell him it’s fine, that it wasn’t his fault, that they’ll take a break and work on it some more in a day or two. Lilley still looks miserable.

Rudy suggests a lunch break, and everyone makes their way upstairs. Ray feels a little relieved, but mostly he feels like delaying the inevitable isn’t going to help anything.

It turns out he doesn’t need to worry, though. Not for today, at least. Wynn gets a phone call halfway through lunch, and he and Brad leave a few minutes later.

 

X

Lilley spends most of the day in their room, only coming out to pick at his supper and ignore Nate and Rudy’s attempts at getting him to talk. Rudy and Trombley head out an hour or so after supper, and Wynn and Brad come back a while after that. One by one, the others head up to bed.

Ray goes up eventually, expecting Lilley to follow soon after. He leaves the door open a crack and goes to brush his teeth.

He’s been in bed for half an hour when he realizes that Lilley’s not coming upstairs anytime soon. Everyone else is tucked away in their rooms. Ray is too, and he’s finally found a comfortable position that doesn’t involve the mattress creaking every time he shifts, and _god damn it_.

The wood on the stairs is freezing against his bare feet. There’s a dim light in the living room that flicks off after a moment. Then it’s back on. Lilley’s on the couch, using his power to click his iPod off and back on again over and over. He looks up when Ray comes in, but he doesn’t stop.

Ray thinks about turning the light on so the screen flicking bright and dark doesn’t look so creepy. He thinks about just going back to bed.

He ends up sitting down next to Lilley, stealing an earbud and listening to two-second snippets of Guns ‘n’ Roses. He yawns; Lilley echoes it, eyes scrunching shut. He leans into Ray’s side, sighing.

Eventually Ray realizes they’ve gotten through an entire chorus of “Paradise City” without pausing. Lilley’s drifting off next to him, humming along every few bars or so. Ray unplugs them both and shuffles him off to their room. Lilley’s out almost before he’s under his blankets.

 

X

“What are you doing?”

Nate’s standing in front of the full-length mirror in the bathroom, sleeves pushed up, studying his hands. He smiles at Ray in the mirror.

“Practicing,” he says, his voice strange and gravelly. “How do I look?”

His face ripples and then Ray’s looking at Colonel Ferrando, Nate’s eyes shining out from under his graying eyebrows. He’s taller, too, body thicker.

“Holy shit,” Ray breathes. “Is this what you do all day? Practice being other people?”

Nate laughs, his own instead of the low chuckle Ray remembers from some interview Ferrando did to try and make himself seem more human.

“Some days,” he says, in a passable imitation of Ferrando’s voice. His eyes turn blue, and Ray jumps a little, startled. “I practiced before we came to your school. It seems sort of simple, because we were only there for twenty minutes, tops. But it’s always more effective when you’re being someone the target knows. So they’re not going to be looking for differences, but the littlest thing being wrong could fuck things up.

“Like if Ferrando has a scar on his left thumb--” he holds up a weathered hand, displaying a jagged white scar across his knuckle-- “and I don’t, things definitely aren’t going to go smoothly. If they ask about it, I’ll have to think up a lie, and they’ll feel confused and vaguely suspicious, even if they’re not totally sure why. It’s better if everything works.”

“So why Ferrando? I mean, I bet he’d come in handy for scaring the shit out of people. But he’s kind of high profile.”

Nate shrugs. When he speaks, his voice is back to normal. “I practice the President, too. I don’t think I’ll ever use it, but it’s nice to know I have the option. I keep it in my back pocket, you know?”

Ray looks at Nate’s face. It’s Ferrando, but somehow the expression is still Nate.

“So do you ever, like, put on a hot girl’s body and just look at yourself in the mirror?”

“No, Ray.”

“Oh.”

“I did manifest when I was twelve, though.” Nate grins. It looks foreign on Ferrando’s face.

Ray laughs out loud. “Do you ever fuck with people’s heads? Pretend to be someone they know, or change the way you look when they’re not looking?”

Nate sobers. “I try not to abuse it. There are people who push the boundaries of what they can do, and for some of them it’s fine. They keep their perspective. But some people lose sight of where the line is and just keep going.”

“Yeah. You could really fuck with things, homes. Shape shifting _and_ mind reading.”

Nate’s face goes sad and _older_ , and for a second it’s like Ray really is looking at Ferrando instead of Nate. It’s gone in a moment. “Hey, you never answered me earlier,” Nate says brightly. “How do I look?”

“Creepy as fuck.” Nate raises an eyebrow, waiting for more. “The face looks right. I don’t know what his hands are supposed to look like.” Ray studies his face carefully. “He doesn’t move his face as much as you do. And his voice is more... like you can taste cigarettes just from hearing him talk.”

“The physical part’s easier,” Nate admits. “It’s all the other stuff that’s the hardest.”

“The control,” Ray agrees.

“Yeah. I can look at all the pictures of Ferrando I want, but I can’t see him in his house at night, and I probably can’t find out what he reads or listens to on long flights, or who his favorite teacher in high school was. I just have to hope I’m not in a situation where someone expects me to know something I don’t.”

“Yeah. Can you be me?”

Nate laughs. “I used to do that all the time. Poke and I would both --” He cuts himself off, and this weird sort of far-away look comes across his face for a second. “It’s been a while since we did that. But I’ll try one thing.”

He turns back into himself, like shrugging off a Ferrando coat to show the Nate underneath. The robe settles down onto his shoulders, and Nate tightens the belt around his waist. He studies Ray’s face for a long moment and then his forehead is rippling, and when it settles his eyebrows are darker and his eyes are brown and Ray’s looking at his own face on Nate’s body.

“Oh,” Ray breathes, reaching out to touch him without thinking. His fingers skim Nate’s jawline, grazing stubble that feels like his own. “Now that is fucked up. It’s like a Ray mask.”

Nate grins, and it’s him and Ray at the same time, not quite what Ray sees in the mirror but close. “I’ve been told it’s a little bit of a mindfuck. Poke likes to do it when he’s being introduced to people, but I try to wait until they ask.”

“That’s very polite of you,” Ray says, turning to follow Nate’s line of sight over his shoulder. Rudy’s standing in the doorway, looking between them. He squints at Nate.

“Haven’t seen you do this in a while,” he says, voice soft, but Nate’s already shaking Ray’s features off like water.

“Did you get anything?” he asks.

“We’re meeting downstairs in five,” Rudy says. He gives Nate a long, measured look. “That looked good. I always like it when you improvise.”

“We were just messing around,” Nate says, ducking past Rudy and into the hallway. Rudy turns to follow, but not before sending a pleased little smile back at Ray.

 

X

“What’s going on?” Lilley asks, coming out of the bedroom. Rudy and Nate are heading down the stairs, and Trombley comes out of his room down the hall and follows a moment later.

“I have no idea. I think Brad and Rudy must’ve found something important. They’re having a meeting.”

“Do you think they found that guy again?”

“Maybe. Or maybe they’re going to steal mutants from the Org raiders again.”

“Maybe. I hope it’s the guy, though.”

“How come?”

“‘Cause he’s been in there longer. Plus... um. I dunno.”

“What?” Ray asks, curiosity piqued.

“I probably shouldn’t, ‘cause they don’t even know that I heard, but. Nate and Brad were talking in the basement the other night, and I think it was about their friend. The door was open a little and I sort of listened for a minute. Nate was really upset. He said he let them take that guy, and now he can’t get him back.”

“He _let_ them?”

“I don’t think he meant, like, _let them_ let them.”

“Like he thinks he could’ve stopped them?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“That’s messed up. Nobody should feel guilty over shit the Org does except the Org.”

“Seriously, brah. It’s not his fault they’re evil.”

They make a mutual decision to make popcorn and see if there are any shitty movies on cable. They find Castaway on TNT and settle on the couch to wait for the meeting to end.

They’re to the part where Tom Hanks starts talking to Wilson when the others start coming up the stairs. Lilley squints at the TV for a second and it clicks off as the door opens.

“Hey, I think you’re getting faster!” Ray says. He turns to Nate and Wynn as they come into the living room. “Hey. What’s going on?”

The two of them exchange a look. Nate sits next to Ray on the arm of the couch.

“We’ve gotten some intel about our friend. We’re going to go out again tonight and try to get him back. We need Trombley with us this time, so we’re trusting the two of you to stay here by yourselves.”

He pats Ray’s shoulder and stands up. Because he’s done explaining. Because that’s all they’re getting.

“Oh, you’re -- you’re _trusting_ us,” Ray says. “With _what_?”

Nate gives him a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look, startled and confused. “With... the house? And we’ll need to go over what to do if there are any problems.”

Ray shakes his head. “You’re trusting us to sit around while you go out and do who the hell even knows what, and wait patiently for you to come back, and figure our own shit out if you _don’t_ come back. Why can’t you just tell us what you’re doing? Or take us with you?”

Nate sits back down. He takes a slow breath in. “What we’re doing is dangerous, Ray. And it’s secret. We don’t know either of you all that well yet, you especially. There’s a certain amount of trust that needs to be involved in things like this. Once we know more about you and what your abilities are like, we’ll be able to involve you in more of what we’re doing.”

“So I’m just supposed to tell you whatever you want to know about me, and then maybe eventually you’ll tell me what you guys do every time you leave the house?” Ray’s getting a little tired of this. He hasn’t kept his own secrets all these years just to give them up so easily.

“I think we stand to lose a lot more in this situation if things go bad,” Wynn says from behind Nate.

“See, I don’t even know what that means,” Ray says, waving a hand in the air. “What happens if things go bad? That could be anything. And that’s not even true, because if you’re secretly blowing up buildings or something, I’m the one who’s going to get arrested just for being here. I have no idea what the fuck you’re even trying to do. So I’m supposed to either blindly trust you enough to sit here while you go do whatever it is you’re doing, or blindly trust you even more and tell you everything about myself.”

Nate closes his eyes for a long moment, clearly frustrated. When he opens them again, he fixes Ray with a firm stare. “This is how we do things. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but this is the way it is.”

He gets up again and goes into the kitchen. Wynn heads upstairs.

Ray presses both palms to his forehead. “Fuck,” he says. That went well.

“It’s not that I’m disagreeing,” Lilley says. “But, I mean. You could --”

“No,” Ray snaps, because if he starts telling them things he’ll have to tell them everything. They already know he knows someone with powers; they’ll expect a name. They’ll want to know how he’s lasted so long without control, so he’ll have to tell them he _can_ control his power. And then they’ll probably want him to use it for whatever they’re doing. It’s better to just keep quiet for as long as possible.

Which is not Lilley’s fault. “Sorry,” Ray says. He turns to look at Lilley. “Sorry, I’m just...” He makes a face that he hopes accurately conveys ‘freaking out and being an asshole.’

“It’s cool,” Lilley says. “Hey, I’m gonna go upstairs and see if I can mess around with my iPod.”

“‘kay. I’ll probably come up soon.”

 

X

Brad and Trombley come up a few minutes later. Ray hears the sound of the rug Rudy uses for yoga hitting the floor downstairs before the door clicks shut.

Trombley heads to his room and Brad goes into the kitchen. Nate says something as he enters, too soft for Ray to hear.

Ray knows he should go upstairs after Lilley, or downstairs to breathe for a while and calm the fuck down. He should, but his feet take him toward the kitchen anyway. He’s just so sick of being treated like a child just because he hasn’t been inducted into their special club of crime-fighters or what the fuck ever.

The kitchen goes silent when he walks in. Nate’s obviously told Brad about the argument, because they both look a little pissed off.

“Do you need something, Ray?” Brad asks pointedly. Ray opens his mouth, still in smart-ass mode. Brad beats him to it. “Here to imply that we’re all secretly plotting evil some more?”

“I didn’t--” Ray starts, because that’s not what he _meant_.

“You kind of did,” Nate interrupts.

“I didn’t mean it like -- like I think you go into the basement and go over your evil plans and hope your maniacal laughter isn’t loud enough for me and Lilley to hear it. But I don’t know you. I don’t know what you even want out of all of this. There’s more to it than getting your friend back.”

Brad leans back against the counter, crossing his arms. “And you think that something is what, assassination plots? Drowning puppies? You think _we’re_ the bad guys?”

“No,” Ray says. “I mean, I don’t think you are, but it’s like -- Schrodinger’s mutant or something, like there’s no way to know for sure until you open the box. And even if you are trying to make things better, I don’t know what you’re willing to do to get your friend back or shut down a facility or whatever. I mean, plenty of people do bad stuff in the name of fixing all the world’s problems. Like Oprah.”

“Oprah.”

“Everyone thinks that bitch is solving all the world’s problems by giving poor people cars and shit. But is she giving them jobs or paying off their student loans? Is she gonna pay the taxes on those shiny cars that Nissan or who the fuck ever is giving her to give away? Fuck no. She’s gone the next day like a one night stand who leaves you with nothing but shame and gonorrhea.”

Brad stares at him incredulously. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“Maybe if everyone could just take a breath,” Nate says. “And then Ray, maybe you could start at the beginning and tell us what the real problem is here.”

Ray breathes in. He closes his eyes and exhales. “I don’t like not knowing what’s going on,” he says, and he hopes they can’t hear the tremor in his voice. “I don’t like not being in control of anything.” He opens his eyes. They’re both looking at him like that’s not enough. “I’m not trying to be an asshole,” he adds, because all he wanted to know was what was going on and this isn’t where he meant for this to go at all.

“You’re just a natural, then,” Wynn says from the doorway, drawl softening his words a little. Trombley and Rudy are behind him. Ray’s not sure how long they’ve been there.

Nate exchanges glances with Wynn, who leads the others into the room. Lilley’s not with them. Ray almost misses it when Nate looks at Brad, just catches the roll of Brad’s eyes and Nate’s answering smile as Brad turns and starts out of the room.

“Ray,” Brad says, waving a hand for Ray to follow him. Ray goes. Rudy closes the door behind them.

They go into the living room. Brad sits on one end of the couch and stares at the wall. Ray curls himself into the other end of the couch, tucking his feet under the pillow wedged in the corner and tugging his sleeves down over his hands. He’s pretty sure this is the most uncomfortable he’s ever been. The others are probably in the kitchen deciding whether or not to kick him out of the house for being a giant asshole.

There’s a long moment of silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Ray sees Brad turn to look at him. He studies him and then says evenly, “You know, Oprah is an American hero, Ray.”

Ray’s still in fighting mode, so his first instinct is the snap, “Oprah is everything that’s wrong with this country. She and President Hollis should start a club.”

“She has a club already. A book club.”

It takes a second for the words to click, and then Ray’s huffing out a disbelieving laugh. He chances a look over at Brad; he still looks a little pissed off, but the corner of his mouth is quirked up just a little.

Ray runs a finger along a green stripe in the plaid pattern of the couch. He feels like he should say something else, something that will explain things better. He opens his mouth, but Brad cuts him off.

“I get it,” he says. “Stop explaining.”

 

X

Ray spends the next ten minutes or so just focusing on breathing. He gets a nice rhythm going, deep and even. He catalogues the noises around him; the soft voices in the kitchen, the birds outside, Brad on the other end of the couch, breathing starting to match up with Ray’s. He’s too worked up to really focus, but he works on letting go of as much of the anger as he can.

He opens his eyes when he hears footsteps coming down the stairs. Lilley looks between Brad and Ray and over at the closed kitchen door like he’s thinking about turning around and going back up. Ray gives him an apologetic little smile, knowing he’s going to get shit later for making things worse after Lilley left. Lilley gives him a look but comes to sit between Ray and Brad on the couch.

Lilley sighs and pokes Ray’s knee. “‘m hungry,” he says, like it’s Ray’s fault. He guesses it kind of is.

“Mom and Dad have to decide how long I’m grounded for first,” Ray says.

Lilley pokes him again. “Dude, you know what I want? I want a burger. With bacon and onion and pepper jack.”

Ray’s thinking about it now. He can almost taste it. He wants it like a zombie craves brains. “Now _I’m_ hungry,” he complains. Lilley raises an eyebrow, smug.

The door opens just then, and the others file into the room. Nate comes to stand in front of Ray. “Okay,” he says, and Brad gets off the couch and disappears into the kitchen. Nate watches him the door shut behind him and looks back at Ray and Lilley. “The two of you are going to come with us tonight.”

Lilley sits up straight. “Really?!” Ray stays quiet, but inside he’s thinking the same thing.

“You’re going to wait in the van. You’re nowhere near ready to come into the facility with us. You’re going to listen and do everything we tell you to do, exactly as we tell you to do it. Understood?”

They both nod; Lilley looks too excited to string words together, and Ray thinks nonverbal is a good course of action for right now.

 

X

When they park a quarter mile from the facility, Lilley is practically vibrating with excitement. Ray sort of wants to throw up. Nate had gone over the basics of the plan with them at the safe house -- how they have intel and blueprints and a plan to be in and out in minutes, how Ray and Lilley will wait in the van, and what they should do if things go wrong.

At first Ray had been happy to finally be included in what’s going on. But then he started to really think about it. What happens if a van full of mutants gets caught on their way to break into a facility in the middle of the night? Ray’s assuming the Org would violently kill them all on the spot and then make up their budget deficit charging people twenty bucks a pop to come spit on their decaying bodies. Ray pulls his sleeves down over his hands and closes his eyes.

There are a handful of facilities in the area -- an original build that went up during President Hollis’s first big anti-mutant program, and some smaller off-shoots that Nate says house specialized programs and experiments. In other words, the original building is the prison, and the off-shoots are the torture chambers.

The Org named the original building Stoneridge, back when they were still pretending the facilities were schools. The others are all variations on the name; this one is Stoneridge Echo. The main facilities are still pretending to be something other than what they are, with enough lights on that they’re visible for miles and big cheerful welcome signs by the driveway. Echo, on the other hand, is tucked away in a valley, with no identifiers except a small sign on the road just before the turn-off labelled “S-ECHO.”

They’re off the road now, within sight of the facility. There’s a rocky bluff to the west, and behind it there’s an outbuilding just visible through the darkness. The facility itself, lit up with one streetlight and barely bigger than the outbuilding, sits on a concrete slab in the middle of a valley.

Up front, the others have a hushed conversation. Ray watches their faces in the dark; Trombley looks like someone just told him he gets all the hookers for free, Nate looks focused, and Brad looks -- well. Brad looks like he’s ready to take on the whole Org by himself and win while breaking just enough of a sweat to look extra manly and heroic. It’s somehow comforting and disconcerting as fuck at the same time.

Brad sweeps a glance across the van and meets Ray’s eyes. He nods; Ray nods back. Brad turns to Lilley and tosses the van keys back to him.

“If we’re not back in half an hour, or if shit goes bad before then, you two need to get out of here,” Brad says, repeating the basics of the emergency plan they’d gone over earlier. “Drive for at least two hours, no more than four. Don’t go more than 5 over the speed limit.”

Nate zips up a navy blue jacket, adjusting the sleeves. “There’s some cash and a prepaid cell in the glove box. Once you’re out of the city, call the number under speed dial 7. Leave a message and use the cash for a hotel. Someone will come get you in the morning. Okay?”

Ray and Lilley nod in unison. The others file out of the van, and Ray watches them disappear into the darkness. Nate and Wynn go one way, Brad and Trombley another. Rudy stops at the top of the bluff and sets up in a nook between rocks.

Ray watches the nook for a long moment. He glances at Lilley. “Front seat?”

“Front seat,” Lilley agrees, and they move into the front so they can see better.

Everything is quiet. Ray realizes, abruptly, that he doesn’t even know what he should be listening for. Alarms or footsteps or gunshots or maybe another helicopter or something. They’re totally gonna die and get spit on.

All he can do is watch the dark spot where he’s pretty sure Rudy’s playing lookout. He squints at it through the dark until he’s not even sure that’s where Rudy is anymore.

“What do you think’s happening?” Lilley asks. The excitement from earlier is gone from his voice.

Ray shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t even know what the plan is.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Lilley says.

Ray turns back to the bluff, but now all the shadows look the same and he’s not sure which one he should be looking at.

The shadows move a minute later, when a Rudy-shaped blur pops up over a boulder. He darts toward the outbuilding and disappears behind it.

Then a siren goes off, quick blaring sounds that cut through the quiet. Lights come on around the valley, lighting up the facility like a football stadium on a Friday night. Ray and Lilley jump in their seats.

“Fuck,” Lilley whispers. “What do we do?”

Ray looks at the keys Lilley’s clutching in his hand. They’re supposed to leave, probably. Before the drones start searching the grounds. He could grab the keys and go wherever he wants to go. Lilley wouldn’t stop him. He’d probably help.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe this is supposed to happen.”

The siren stops, but the lights stay on. They’re both frozen in their seats.

Lilley sucks in a breath and yanks open the door. He tosses the keys into Ray’s lap and darts out. “I’m getting Rudy,” he calls over his shoulder on the way out, and then he’s sprinting up the hill.

“Lilley!” Ray whisper-shouts, but it’s too late. Lilley’s already scrambling over the rocks leading up the hill. Ray opens his own door, shoving the keys in his pocket. He starts to follow Lilley, but he sees something move by the outbuilding. He thinks it’s Rudy coming back until he sees the blond hair.

Brad stumbles across the cement and almost falls when he hits the grass. Ray’s running toward him without thinking, his breathing harsh in the quiet.

Brad jerks back, startled, when Ray rounds an outcropping of rocks and nearly bowls him over. He looks sick, pale and glassy-eyed. His breath comes out in puffs that fade into the warm May air.

“Ray,” he says, and Ray barely manages to catch him when he stumbles again. He ducks under Brad’s arm and starts leading him back toward the van. He’s almost carrying him by the time they get there, and Ray’s shoulders and whole left side are getting colder by the second.

Ray opens the door to the backseat with one hand and drags Brad up onto the seat, looking around for any sign of Lilley. There’s no movement at all.

Brad grabs Ray’s wrist, fingers icy. He’s trying to talk, but no noise is coming out. Ray can see ice crystals forming around his mouth and even in his eyes, Jesus. He reaches toward the front seat with his other hand, but Ray’s too afraid to let go of him to figure out what he wants.

“Okay,” Ray says. “Okay.” He’s never heated up a person before. He needs to not fuck this up.

Brad goes limp against Ray, eyes falling shut. His hand stays tight around Ray’s wrist. Ray twists his wrist in Brad’s grip so he can grab onto Brad’s arm. He focuses on him, on the energy and the heat that feel way too far away. He nudges them, urging them to move again. He lets the warmth surge up in himself and pushes it gently toward Brad.

He feels a flare of warmth, feedback looping through Brad and back to him. Brad shifts, moving closer ‘til he’s pressed against Ray. Ray can hear a noise like ice crackling. It’s not enough. He can feel Brad’s power like solid ice, fighting against every surge of warmth he tries to push into Brad.

He puts his other hand on Brad’s chest and pushes harder, letting a steady stream of heat flow out of him. He feels it move through Brad’s chest and down his arm to Ray’s hand. Brad shudders, turning his face into Ray’s neck. He’s still ice cold, lips trembling against Ray’s skin.

Ray fists Brad’s shirt in his hand and pulls him even closer. Brad wraps his free arm around Ray’s neck. Ray can feel ice collecting and melting in the hollow of his throat, steam hissing as cold meets hot.

Outside, the sirens start up again. Ray slides his hand under Brad’s shirt, touching his bare chest and pushing heat into Brad as hard as he can risk it. He can feel Brad’s heartbeat suddenly, stronger and faster but still weak.

Ray holds the loop steady and turns his focus on the warmth that’s slowly returning to Brad’s body. He touches it with his own heat, coaxing it into building on itself and spreading out. He stretches it up and out, nudging up against the oppressive cold he knows is Brad’s power, still trying to fight him.

Something wet hits Ray’s neck and Brad makes a pained noise low in his throat. Then there are noises approaching from outside, and Ray’s gathering up every ounce of strength he has to use against whatever drone just found them, and then Lilley’s saying, “What the fuck?”

“Get in, get in,” Wynn says behind him. The others start piling into the van.

Ray opens his eyes and sees Nate staring down at them, confusion and fear taking over his features.

“Keys, where are the keys?” Trombley asks from the driver’s seat.

“I gave them to Ray!” Trombley says

“What are you doing?” Nate asks, reaching for Brad. His hands connect with Brad’s arm and he hisses. “Jesus, he’s--”

He cuts himself off and darts away, out of Ray’s line of sight. Rudy appears above Ray. He leans in and touches Ray’s face.

“Do you have the keys, Ray?” he asks. “I need you to focus, brother.”

“Pocket,” Ray rasps. Rudy fumbles into each of Ray’s pockets. Ray hears the keys jangle as Rudy pulls them out. He can’t seem to get his eyes to stay open.

Nate comes back. Ray blinks at him. He has a little gray box. He flips it open and pulls out something small -- a syringe, delicate and half-full of something tinged a sickly green. It’s hard to focus on the needle and the feel of the warmth fighting its way into Brad at the same time. Nate slides it into the skin behind Brad’s ear and depresses the plunger.

Brad’s grip on Ray tightens and then goes slack. Nate leans in, taking his pulse and then pulling him out of Ray’s arms. Ray grabs for him feebly, panic swelling in his chest, but he’s too drained to even sit up.

“What the hell happened?” Wynn asks as Nate and Rudy bundle Brad up in the back of the van. He gets in Ray’s face a little, shaking his shoulder. “Ray. I need you to tell me what happened.”

“He was cold,” Ray says, voice slurring a little. Everything sways to one side and he can’t tell if it’s the van or him. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to hold himself steady.

“Did you see anyone? Did anyone see you?” Nate’s above him now, leaning over the back of the seat, maybe. “Ray.”

“Nobody saw me,” Ray says, and then, carefully, so he won’t be misunderstood, so maybe someone will tell him what the fuck is going on, “Is he dying?”

There’s a beat of quiet, and Ray thinks for a second that they’re trying to figure out how to tell him yes.

“No,” Nate says firmly. “No, he’s going to be fine, you did good, Ray. You kept him warm ‘til we got back, and we should have told you about the antidote, but we’ll talk about that in the morning, okay?”

Ray wants to say okay, wants to say _antidote to what_ , but Nate says they’ll talk about it in the morning, and Ray’s starting to ache all over. Someone touches him, wiping at the water still clinging to Ray’s skin.

“He’s really warm,” Nate says, and Ray should tell him he’s always run a few degrees hotter. He should. He will when he wakes up.


	4. Chapter 4

X

> FROSTBURG, M.D. --
> 
> Breaking news tonight. We can report that the vehicle involved in a single-car accident off Highway 40 in Frostburg contained Senator Edward Blake and his family. And we can confirm, from a source in the Allegany County Sheriff’s Department, that there were no survivors.
> 
> Senator Blake, his wife Melanie, and their ten-year-old son, Owen, were on their way home from a family outing to see a production of “Our Town” at Frostburg State University when the accident occurred. At this time, the cause of the accident has not been determined.
> 
> All three were taken by helicopter to Western Maryland Regional Medical Center in Cumberland, but we are told that all three died instantly in the crash.

 

X.

“It can’t happen again. We could have lost Brad.”

Nate’s voice filters in under the buzzing in Ray’s ears. His body feels like he’s been asleep for a long time. Across the room, someone shifts in their chair.

“They’ll have moved him by now,” Rudy says quietly. “We’ll have to wait for more intel before we can go again.”

“It’s not like we haven’t already been waiting.” Brad sounds tired. Like he’s trying to hide how tired he is.

“I though you were resting,” Wynn says. “You know what Doc says about after-effects.”

“I’m fine. Did you talk about how last night went down?”

“How it seemed like they were waiting for us?”

“Yeah. Again,” Brad says. He sounds angry and exhausted. “The drone that got me must’ve had that syringe ready before I even cracked the seal on the door.”

“What the fuck happened?” Trombley asks. “Did we get bad intel?”

Ray cracks his eyes open. He’s on the couch -- no, _a_ couch. In a living room, but they must have moved safe houses, because the room is bigger and faces a back porch instead of connecting to a kitchen like before. Everyone’s gathered on the other side of the room.

“No,” Nate’s saying firmly. “Last time, maybe. But this time...”

He looks at Wynn.

“This time the intel was good,” Wynn says. “The problem is something else. I just have no idea what it is.”

“We can’t keep going in if they’re just gonna be ready to knock us down,” Brad says.

“Well, at least Ray was there to keep you warm until we got back,” Wynn says pointedly. Ray looks away from Brad to see Wynn and everyone else looking at him. Oh, _shit_. “You sure got control of yourself at the right time, didn’t you.”

Ray’s mouth feels too dry to talk. He licks his lips. “Is that better or worse than not telling me there’s a drug out there that makes your power go crazy?”

Wynn shakes his head. “So because we didn’t tell you one thing, it’s okay that --”

“One thing? You haven’t told me anything! There’s a guy, somewhere, and you have to get him, for _reasons_ or something. There’s no way that’s all this is about.”

“And you expect us to tell you everything when we don’t know anything about you?”

“You’re the ones who brought me here,” Ray points out.

“We _saved_ you,” Brad says.

“Well, I guess we’re even now, aren’t we.”

Brad’s eyes narrow and Nate steps up next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You do have a point, Ray. There are some things you should know. And maybe when you understand a little more about what we’re trying to do here, and what we’re up against, you’ll decide to be honest with us.”

That sounds... actually kind of foreboding, and Ray blinks at Nate until he quirks his head to one side and says, “But first, I’m going to make a sandwich.”

He disappears into the kitchen, and the others seem to agree as a group that yes, sandwiches, and they file out until Ray and Lilley are alone in the living room. Lilley comes over and sits down on the rug next to the couch, not looking at Ray.

“Hey,” Ray says. Lilley’s eyes flick up and back down to where he’s picking at carpet fibers. “Hey. Lilley.”

Lilley makes a face at him. “You should’ve told me. I thought we both sucked but it’s just me.”

“Dude, no. You don’t -- it’s not gonna happen right away. You just have to keep working at it.”

Lilley snorts. “Are you quoting one of Mrs. Garber’s motivational posters?”

“Don’t mock my life’s philosophy, Lilley. Besides, I only quote the ones with kittens on them.”

Brad comes back into the room, carrying a plate and a bottle of water.

“What if it never happens?” Lilley asks.

“It will. It took me forever,” Ray says without thinking. He can feel Brad looking at him. “You’ll get it.”

“Ray, is turkey okay?” Rudy asks from the doorway.

“Yeah.” Ray turns and accidentally meets Brad’s eyes. Rudy goes back to the kitchen, and Lilley follows him, saying something about being starving. Ray tries to make himself look away but a part of him just _can’t_.

“Forever, huh,” Brad says.

Ray closes his eyes, turns his head away. “It’s not like you didn’t know.”

“I only knew you had more control than you let on. What you did...” Brad looks away, clearing his throat. He meets Ray’s eyes again. “Besides, I was waiting for you to tell them.”

Ray’s working his way up to an answer when the others come back in all at once. He shifts over so Lilley can sit on the couch next to him. Ray is suddenly starving too, and he takes a giant bite of his turkey on rye just as Nate says, “In high doses, the drug is designed to kill mutants.”

Ray chokes a little.

“What Brad received was a lower dosage of the drug, which spiked his power out of control but wasn’t enough to cause permanent damage. The Org used it in raids at first, in a gas form that was then modified into the liquid version. They could gas a crowd of people, in order to reveal the mutants and incapacitate them.”

Ray wonders how the fuck he hasn’t heard about this before.

“But when a mutant’s power went crazy, norms usually ended up getting hurt in the process. Officially, the program was shut down soon after the first trial runs, and the drug was destroyed. Unofficially, they started running other experiments.

“Now, the main use of the drug is in facilities. They’re not trying to get rid of powers anymore. They’re trying to use them. The drug amps up powers -- for as long as it’s in your system, or until you get the antidote. Now, from everything we’ve been able to find out, it looks like they’re trying to develop a version that will permanently increase the strength of mutants’ powers.”

“So basically,” Ray says, bite of sandwich sitting heavy in his stomach, “what you’re saying is that we’re fucked.”

“No,” Brad says. “What he’s saying is that we’re tied down and helpless, but the Org is having trouble getting it up.”

“The trials haven’t been going well,” Rudy says. “The number of mutant deaths has doubled in the past six months.”

“Jesus,” Lilley says softly. His plate is untouched.

“So yeah, there’s more at stake here than one person in a facility,” Nate says dryly. “But getting him out is important to us, too.”

“Okay,” Ray says. He gets that, and he figures the Org trying to turn them all into a super mutant army or whatever is enough of a reason to do all this. He still wants to know what they’re actually planning to _do_ , though.

“And the antidote --” Nate stops, digging into his pocket and pulling out a cell phone. He flips it open, reading the screen. His brow furrows in confusion and then his eyes go huge.

“Mike,” he says, locking eyes with Wynn. They have a moment of silent conversation and then they’re up and heading out the door.

“We gotta go,” Wynn says. He turns back, the corner of his mouth twisting up in apology. “I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

“Be safe,” Rudy calls out as they head down the hallway. A door slams a moment later.

 

X

Nate and Wynn are gone for five days.

Brad takes Trombley out twice to gather intel. Rudy leaves and comes back with a thick stack of maps; he disappears into the basement for most of an afternoon. The house keeps moving, but there’s a slowly building tension underneath everything.

Trombley starts spending more time in cat form, hiding away on top of cabinets and in the backs of closets. He sleeps like that at the foot of Lilley’s bed one night -- Ray remembers hearing the door open and seeing Trombley shift before the soft sounds of purring lulled him back to sleep -- but he’s gone before either Ray or Lilley wakes up in the morning.

When Wynn and Nate come back, Nate disappears upstairs without a word. After things settle down a little, Wynn comes into the living room and says it’s time for another practice session. Ray gets up to head to the basement, but Wynn says it’s just for Lilley. That Ray obviously doesn’t need or want anyone’s help, so they shouldn’t waste their time.

Lilley makes an apologetic face at him before he disappears down the stairs, but Ray’s fine with it. Being left out of the practice sessions is what Ray wanted all along. And Wynn’s right. It’s not like Ray needs anyone’s help.

It’s not long before Lilley’s coming back upstairs, though; Ray can tell by the look on his face that practice didn’t go well. Lilley heads up to the second floor. Ray goes to follow him, but takes a detour into the kitchen first. There’s some leftover lasagna in the fridge that’s calling his name.

He walks in on what looks like a stand-off between Nate and Brad, both of them glaring at the floor, shoulders tense. Nate uses Ray’s entrance as an excuse to leave. Brad scrubs a hand over his forehead, meeting Ray’s eyes for a moment and then looking away.

Ray goes to the cupboard by the fridge. There are no plates on the shelf. Apparently no one in the house is capable of unloading a dishwasher. He opens it up and starts stacking plates and lining the cups up in neat rows in the cupboard.

Brad joins him, starting in on the silverware. “Not practicing?” he asks, putting a handful of spoons into their rightful place.

“Wynn says I’m not invited.” Ray goes up on his toes, putting his favorite mug at the back of the shelf so hopefully no one else will find it.

“Can you blame him?” Brad asks. When Ray turns, he’s focused on separating the knives from the forks.

“They’re done, anyway,” Ray says, avoiding the question. “Lilley went upstairs.”

“And how does he feel about it?” Brad’s looking at him now, a speculative look in his eyes. He’s taking bowls out of the dishwasher without looking, making a neat stack on the counter next to him.

“Lilley? He didn’t look happy. I mean, he’s making progress, but. It’s frustrating, I guess. He doesn’t like not being able to control it.”

“Understandable.”

“I don’t think he’s gonna like, freak out or anything. If you’re worried. For someone who grew up in the ass-crack of Missouri, he’s actually pretty normal.”

“Really,” Brad says, feigning shock.

“He only lived there for a few years, though. If he’d spent his whole life there, he’d probably be nothing but a big pile of nerves and anger management issues. I mean, I thought he’d be mad at me for way longer.”

Brad raises an eyebrow. “You don’t think he’s still mad?”

Ray kind of blanches, because he thought he and Lilley were cool. They _are_ cool, although he knows things are going to be weird for a little while. Ray flounders for a response.

“I think it would be justified if he were still a little mad,” Brad says, and he pronounces the words carefully, like he’s not sure how they’ll sound coming out. Brad always seems sure of himself, and it makes Ray pause for a second. Brad’s searching his face, like he’s waiting for something. Everything clicks in Ray’s head.

“He would be. Justified,” he says. “I mean, if. If I were...” He can’t tell from the look on Brad’s face whether he’s saying this right or not. “If I were friends with someone. If I lied to them, then they’d have a right to be mad.”

Brad tilts his head to one side, considering. Ray got it almost right. “For a while,” Brad amends. Ray’s shoulders sag a little, tension flowing out of him.

Brad picks up the bowls and crosses the room, opening the next cabinet over from the plates and cups. He sets the bowls on the counter, though, and turns to look at Ray. “He’ll be okay, though?” Ray’s thrown for a second, and he almost asks if Brad means Lilley, but he knows the answer.

There’s something in Brad’s eyes that Ray can’t quite identify, worry and confusion and a hint of something sharp and open and not wounded, exactly, but like the anticipation of pain. Ray opens his mouth to answer and has to stop and swallow, unsure as to why. Brad’s still watching him, patient. Ray shakes his head, clears his throat, and says, “He’ll be fine.” He’s pretty sure he means it.

The tightness around Brad’s eyes eases a little. “Good to know,” he says, leaning past Ray to close the cupboards.

 

X

Upstairs, Ray finds the bathroom door shut. He hangs around for a while and then knocks on the door. “You alive?”

“Mostly,” Lilley yells back.

“Are you taking a shit?”

Ray could swear he hears Lilley sigh through the door. “No.”

“Are you taking a bubble bath?”

“I’m not -- no. Come in, Ray.”

Ray opens the door and pokes his head inside, not knowing what to expect. What he finds is Lilley sitting in the empty bathtub, looking like someone just told him the Org has cancelled Christmas.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Lilley says, thunking his head back against the tile. “Nothing’s working. I thought I was getting better, but now I can’t even get _one_ suit to unlock. It’s like everything I’ve done so far was just a fluke.”

“I actually meant ‘what are you doing in the bathtub, and can you do it in the bedroom for a minute so I can piss’.” He actually does need to pee, but mostly he wants Lilley to get out of the bathtub and stop freaking out.

“There’s an alarm clock in the bedroom.”

“So?”

“So, I can _feel_ it.”

“Like it’s part of you, right? Are you gonna move?”

“If I go out there, I’ll feel it more,” Lilley says, pulling his knees up to his chest. “Like it’s -- kind of. Like it’s trying to be part of me.”

Ray turns on the water in the sink and flips up the toilet seat. “If you’re not gonna leave, then avert your eyes, dude.”

Lilley closes them instead and Ray takes care of business.

“That’s how I feel, too. Like if somebody flicked on a lighter downstairs, I would know.”

“Yeah? So it’s the same thing?”

Ray zips up and turns to wash his hands. “You mean none of them told you that’s how it’s supposed to feel?”

“Or maybe we’re both the crazy ones,” Lilley says, but he’s got less of a Charlie Brown thing going on.

“Let me ask you,” Ray says, straddling the lip of the tub. “When you walk into the bedroom and sense the alarm clock, what do you do?”

“It feels weird, so I -- I push it away, you know? ‘Cause I want it to stop.”

“What about with your iPod? Or the radio, or when you unlocked that suit?”

“With the radio and the suit... I dunno. Maybe I was just focused on the right thing. Or I wasn’t over-thinking it, maybe.”

“And your iPod?”

“It’s different.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause it’s mine.”

Ray grins. “Where is it?”

Lilley closes his eyes. “On the table in the living room. Huh. I didn’t know I knew that.”

“Yeah? I know the oven’s on downstairs. Pre-heating for something. A fire just got started in the fireplace across the street. Gas, not wood-burning. One of those ones with the fake pile of wood in it, probably. Two houses down, a cigarette just got lit in the backyard.”

He opens his eyes. Lilley’s watching him, eyes big. “You know how I know that? ‘Cause they’re mine. Or I’m theirs, whatever. It’s all connected. That’s why I can start fires or build them or stop them. It’s like... your hands are a part of you, right? But when you go to pick something up or jerk off or whatever, you’re not thinking, oh, where are my hands? Dude, where are -- oh, there they are, now I’m gonna reach out -- nah, you just think, I want some water, and then you’re holding the bottle.

“You need to think about how you think of your hands or your iPod and work on thinking of other shit like that, too. That alarm clock is part of you. You’re not turning it on, you’re turning -- you know, a part of yourself --”

Ray trails off.

“Reconsidering your metaphor?” Lilley asks, smirking.

“My metaphor is fine. It’s just that society these days has filled our brains with unnatural sexual urges. It’s indecent, is what it is.”

“So I need to learn how to turn myself on.”

“Exactly. No, actually, it’s more like tapping into something. Like the dampening suits. When you look at them, you see them as separate from you. But they’re really not. Your power connects you with them. But your power isn’t just like, a thing that’s inside you. You’ve gotta think of it as bigger than you are. A collective force that you’re connected to.”

“Okay, that makes sense. In a new-age hippie kind of way.”

“Be one with the universe,” Ray intones.

Lilley shakes his head. “You’re a fuckin’ weirdo. But thanks.”

“Anytime, young Padawan,” Ray says, getting up. “Now come help me find a good classic rock station.”

 

X

The next morning, Brad joins Ray and Rudy for yoga. Ray’s too focused on going through the sun salutations to hear him coming down the stairs. He only realizes Brad’s coming by the way the room gets cooler around him. He never noticed it before the mission, but now it’s like a chill does up his spine every time Brad comes into a room. He’s not sure if Brad feels it, too.

Brad joins in without comment, stretching out on the floor. His t-shirt rides up in the back, exposing the edges of a tattoo. Ray closes his eyes and tries to focus on his breathing.

When Ray finishes, Rudy is balanced on his arms with both legs up in the air. Brad’s doing something simpler, but still way more complicated than anything Rudy’s taught Ray.

“Are we sparring today, brother?” Rudy asks.

“If you don’t mind,” Brad says.

They ask if Ray minds moving, and he ends up on a throw pillow in the corner, watching the two of them square off against each other. They circle each other, tossing increasingly creative insults back and forth.

It’s easier to relax than Ray expects it to be. He settles back against the wall, breathing in and out in a familiar, steady rhythm. He goes through the usual routine, acknowledging and letting go of the coolness of the basement, the ache in his neck from sleeping wrong the night before, the sounds of feet shuffling on the floor and Rudy and Brad laughing when one of them comes up with a particularly good insult.

There’s a niggling in the back of his mind, distracting him, and he chases it down. It’s Brad, warmer now that he’s sparring but still like a big ice cube on the other side of the room. Ray’s distracted by it, brushing up against Brad’s power with his own instead of moving on. Brad responds, then jerks away. Ray hesitates, part of him wanting to follow; a second later Brad nudges him with a little thread of coolness. He stays close for a long moment and then slowly pulls away.

It’s easier after that, somehow, to stretch out his awareness and focus on his power and nothing else. He should be more distracted, by Brad’s power and the sounds of the two of them scuffling, but his mind drifts out through the house, picking out the heat of the furnace and the water heater, the pipes leading up to the faucet in the kitchen as someone turns on the water.

The sun’s out, heating the house up slowly but not filtering in through any of the blackout curtains. The exhaust pipe of the car passing by on the street is hotter than it should be, the engine struggling to keep from overheating.

He comes back to the basement a while later. When he opens his eyes, Brad and Rudy are sprawled out on the floor, grinning at the ceiling.

 

X

> FROSTBURG, MD --
> 
> According to a confidential source at the Allegany County Medical Examiner’s Office, the body of Senator Blake, which was being held there until it was to be taken to Durst Funeral Home in Frostburg later this afternoon, was removed from the morgue sometime last night. At this time, the location of Senator Blake’s body is unknown.
> 
> This information is yet to be released to the public, and a spokesperson for the Allegany County Sheriff’s Department had no comment on the matter.
> 
> More on this story as it develops.

 

X

Nate starts to disappear for long stretches at a time, and when he is home, he’s different, distant and quiet. It starts to affect everyone, until they’re all up at random hours of the night and bristling at each other during the day, exhaustion and stress and worry taking over.

The uneasy friendship Ray’s been building with Brad stalls out. Brad spends half his time out looking for intel, and when he’s home he’s on the boards or in the basement with Rudy. It’s like it was in the beginning, everyone coming and going and moving around Ray. He tries not to push things. He hopes Nate will finish whatever he’s doing and things will settle down again.

Lilley gets past whatever was holding him back and just keeps getting better. When Wynn isn’t out with Nate, he takes Lilley downstairs for hours at a time. Two weeks ago, Lilley was learning how to turn the TV on with his power. Now Wynn’s got him manipulating dampening suits two at a time. He’s hurtling full speed ahead, toward who even knows what, and it worries Ray a little.

After every practice, Lilley will flop down on the couch or steal a handful of whatever Ray’s snacking on in the kitchen and tell Ray everything Wynn or Rudy had him do that day. He seems tired but happy. Really tired, if Ray’s being honest, but he doesn’t think any of them have been sleeping very well. Not even Trombley.

Lilley’s hands shake a little sometimes, though, and more than once Ray wakes up in the middle of the night to find Lilley’s bed empty and a light on in the basement. He’s not sure how much of it is Lilley wanting to have control and how much is Wynn and the others pushing him to be ready for whatever they’re planning.

One afternoon, after a few hours in the basement with Rudy and Brad, Lilley comes into the living room and sprawls over the arm of the couch. He looks ready to fall asleep. Ray hands him a slice of the orange he just peeled.

“I did three today,” Lilley says, popping the slice into his mouth.

“Cool,” Ray says. At least they didn’t have Lilley try to take down a containment truck or something.

“Yeah,” Lilley says, shrugging. “I tried doing four, but. I dunno, it just wasn’t working.”

Ray has to clench his teeth hard for a minute to keep from saying something he shouldn’t. “You’re moving pretty fast,” he finally says. “Three is awesome. Whatever they need it for, I’m sure anything you can do will make things way easier.”

“Oh! Dude,” Lilley says, leaning in closer. “Rudy says after they get their friend back, they’re planning to jailbreak the next big transport between facilities. Disable the containment truck and take it over and get everybody out.”

Holy _shit_. Ray’s heard about things like that happening, on the boards mostly, and he’d always thought it sounded all brave and heroic and shit. Knowing that the others want Lilley in the middle of all that, doing the heavy lifting, is a little disconcerting. Not that it wouldn’t be worth it, to get all those people away from the Org. He just hopes they don’t push Lilley any harder than they already are to get him ready in time.

“And then --” Lilley starts, and then his eyes go kind of big and guilty, looking over Ray’s shoulder and then down at the floor. Ray turns; Rudy’s in the doorway, looking displeased. Brad’s behind him.

“Can I have a word in the kitchen, please, Jason?” Rudy asks. Lilley winces and gets up.

“Wait,” Ray says, standing up, too. He stares at Lilley in disbelief. “You weren’t supposed to tell me that, were you?”

“I’m sorry,” Lilley says, but he’s looking at Rudy and Brad. “I shouldn’t have -- but, I mean, you didn’t specifically say --”

“Don’t,” Brad interrupts. “You knew you weren’t supposed to tell him. I understand that he’s your friend, and it must be --”

“I’m standing right here!” Ray says, a little louder than he means to. He makes himself take a breath in and let it out. “Of fucking _course_ there’s another big secret mission I’m not allowed to know about. Are you sure you don’t wanna do the jailbreak thing _before_ you get your friend out? That way you’ll have a whole truck full of mutants that you can start pushing too hard just so you can get what you want.”

“What?!” Rudy says. “What is that supposed to mean, Ray?”

“Yeah,” Lilley says. He turns to fully face Ray, looking mad. “You think they’re pushing me? I want to do this, Ray. I want control. And I wanna help people. I mean, what’s the point of having this if all I do is sit around and let the Org hurt people?”

Ray flinches a little, words hitting a nerve. “I didn’t mean you should stop. I just -- you seem really tired,” he finishes lamely. It sounds kind of silly when he says it out loud.

“I’m fine,” Lilley says firmly. “I know you’ve been doing this for way longer than I have, but I don’t need your help. I’m not a baby.”

 _You’re my friend_ , Ray thinks, but Lilley’s already turning on his heel and walking into the kitchen. Rudy follows, shooting Ray an unreadable glance. Brad comes to stand next to Ray as the door to the kitchen closes.

“We need to do this,” Brad says. Ray’s probably imagining the hint of doubt in his voice. “And Lilley wants to help.”

Ray doesn’t answer. The low murmur of Rudy’s voice filters in through the kitchen door.

“Trombley doesn’t know either,” Brad says. “Not yet.”

It’s the closest thing to an apology Ray’s going to get, so he takes it and gives Brad a little bump of warmth in thanks. “I’m gonna go upstairs,” he says. He’s going to go hide, really, and hope Lilley doesn’t come up to their room for a while.

 

X

Ray eats dinner in their room and pretends to already be asleep when Lilley comes upstairs around ten. Lilley turns out the lights and is softly snoring within minutes. Ray lays there for a while, turns over about a hundred times, and finally gives up and goes downstairs.

He doesn’t hear Rudy and Nate until he’s already in the kitchen, about to open the fridge. They’re in the living room. He’d heard the garage door opening when Lilley was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, but he’d assumed it was someone leaving. Nate and Wynn haven’t been home in three days.

“--nothing that gets us any closer,” Rudy’s saying. “I hope you’re having better luck than we are.”

“I can’t really tell yet,” Nate says. His voice sounds rough and overused.

“You mean you can’t tell _me_ ,” Rudy says, but he’s teasing, not angry. “It’s okay, brother. As long as you know what you’re doing.”

Nate laughs softly. “I think I do. Most of the time, at least.”

A door opens in the hallway off the living room. The basement, Ray thinks, or maybe the garage.

“Hey,” Wynn says. “We need to head out.”

There’s the sound of cloth rustling, probably Rudy hugging Nate. “Be safe,” Rudy says.

The door opens and shuts again. A moment later, Rudy’s saying, “I know I don’t need to tell you to look after him.”

“You don’t,” Wynn says. There’s a long pause, and when he speaks again, he sounds more tired than Nate had. “I’m doing my best.”

The living room floor creaks. “He’s not making it easy, is he.”

“Not in the least,” Wynn answers. “I wish...” He sounds _young_ , drawl thicker than usual. “But it needs to be done.”

“And he needs to do it,” Rudy agrees. Clothing rustles again. “Keep us posted, brother.”

The door opens and shuts again.

Ray isn’t hungry anymore. He moves toward the side door, so he can avoid the living room and head back upstairs. Rudy comes in through the other door before Ray can get out. He glances at Ray and goes to the sink, looking unsurprised at Ray’s presence.

Rudy turns on the faucet and drinks straight from the tap. He pulls back, leaning over the sink, water dripping off his chin. Ray waits for him to move. He waits for him to say something about Ray eavesdropping. Rudy doesn’t move.

Ray can feel the water going colder the longer it runs, warmth leaving it and the air around the stream of water. He moves to the sink on autopilot, turning the faucet off. Rudy’s staring blankly at the curtains over the sink.

“I heard you coming down the stairs,” he says. He clears his throat. Ray puts a hand on his arm, tugging him away from the sink. Rudy turns and kind of crumples into Ray. Ray’s arms come up automatically, and after he gets over being startled, he pulls Rudy closer.

 

X

Brad and Rudy seem to ease up on the practicing a little, but Lilley still spends a lot of time in the basement. He’s still pissed at Ray, and Ray’s kind of pissed at everyone. He didn’t mean to make Lilley feel like shit about the progress he’s made; he was worried and it came out wrong. He thinks the whole silent treatment thing Lilley’s got going on is a little much, though.

Nate and Wynn have been gone for four days. Ray’s assuming the conversation Rudy had with both of them got shared with the others, but it doesn’t seem to have helped. No one’s sleeping much; everyone’s tired and stressed. They’ve been snapping at each other all day, over stupid shit like having the volume up too loud on the TV or Trombley not taking a load of clothes out of the dryer right away.

Rudy left early that morning to go meet someone. After the laundry incident, Trombley shifted in to cat form and disappeared. He came out and shifted back for lunch, but now he’s off somewhere in the house, probably hiding under something. Brad’s spent all day in the basement. Ray’s not sure if he’s planning their next move or just trying to breathe.

Ray wants to be in the basement, too, where it’s quieter and he can stop thinking for a while. He’s unsure of things with Brad, though. And if Brad’s drawing up battle plans, Ray won’t be allowed around the intel, which will probably just end up pissing Ray off even more.

Rudy gets back around six, with a binder full of documents. He settles cross-legged in the armchair in the corner and starts reading. From what Ray can see when he comes back from the kitchen, it’s all thick paragraphs of legalese.

Everyone surfaces soon after that, migrating into the kitchen to scrounge for food. Ray already had a sandwich, eating more out of boredom than hunger. Lilley comes out with what Ray thinks might be all of the hot pockets that were in the freezer. He sees Ray on the couch and heads upstairs. Brad’s the last out of the kitchen. He sets his plate on the coffee table and goes to read over Rudy’s shoulder.

“Anything interesting?” Brad asks.

“Not yet,” Rudy says. He rifles through the pages he’s already read and set aside. “Some intake and transfer documents with some good details. But most of what I’ve got is three or four years old.”

Brad’s face falls a little. “Better than nothing,” he says. “We need more on protocol and command structure, anyway. You had dinner yet?”

“No,” Rudy says. He clicks his pen and makes a notation in the margin.

“You want a sandwich?”

“Whatever’s fine.” Rudy’s forehead furrows in concentration. “Thanks,” he says absently. “Oh, but --”

“No mustard, I know,” Brad says on his way into the kitchen.

Trombley turns on the TV. It’s the local news, and they’re talking about the whole Senator Blake thing. Rudy’s pen scratches across another document.

Brad’s coming back into the room when Rudy makes a startled sound. Ray and Trombley look at him; he tries to stand up and knocks the half-full binder and loose papers off the arm of the chair. Brad catches the binder with his free hand, but the papers hit the hardwood and slide across the floor and halfway under the couch.

Ray and Trombley both stand up, but Brad gets to Rudy first, putting down the binder and the plate he was carrying and hovering over Rudy’s chair. Rudy’s holding a piece of paper in both hands, looking stricken.

“What?” Brad says, fear creeping into his voice. “What is it?”

Rudy shakes his head and mutely hands the sheet to Brad. Brad starts to read; Trombley crosses the room and cranes his neck to see. Rudy turns and looks straight at Ray.

“Ray,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Tell you what?” Ray says, response automatic, but his heart’s already in his throat. Three or four years ago, Rudy had said. Intake forms.

“Who’s Lucas?” Trombley asks.

Everything kind of freezes around Ray. The other three are all standing there staring at him now. “My brother,” Ray chokes out, somehow. “He --”

His throat is too tight to talk. He shakes his head. He’s not doing this. He can’t.

“Your brother,” Brad echoes, “is in a facility. And you didn’t think this was relevant?”

He sounds angry, almost betrayed. What right does _he_ have to feel that way? “It’s none of your fucking business,” Ray says, a desperate attempt to get them to let it go. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Were you ever going to tell us?” Rudy asks. “Or were you just going to let him suffer in there? You know what happens in facilities. Isn’t your own brother worth taking a risk for?” Ray can’t find the breath to respond. Rudy looks at him in disbelief. “I didn’t take you for a coward, Ray.”

Ray shakes his head, backing up toward the door. He _is_ a coward. He let his fear of the Org and of the possibility of getting caught own him. He’d hid at the creek for three fucking days, and by the time he’d come back, it was too late.

Lilley comes into the room behind Ray. He says something, startled and confused. Ray can’t hear it over the blood rushing in his ears. Things come abruptly back into focus, like a bucket of ice water’s been dumped over him.

“Turn it down,” Brad snaps, suddenly up close. “Ray!”

Ray pulls back on a swirl of heat he doesn’t remember letting go of.

“What’s going on?” Lilley asks, alarmed. He comes into the room, giving Ray a wide berth.

“Ray’s brother --” Rudy says, and Ray watches Lilley’s eyes go huge “-- has been rotting away in a facility for the past four years, and instead of telling us so we could try and get him out, he --”

“Ray,” Lilley says, sounding almost frantic. Ray ignores him.

“Don’t talk about my brother,” Ray says. He’s desperate, pleading, but it comes out loud enough to sound more angry than anything.

“Does that make it easier to pretend he doesn’t exist?” Brad’s looking at him like he’s a stranger.

“He doesn’t,” Ray says. “He’s not, I didn’t --” but he did, really, it’s all true, just four years removed-- “you think I would’ve still been in that shithole if they took him -- they didn’t take him anywhere, and I should’ve burned down the police station but I was scared and I couldn’t and they killed him. I hid and they murdered him and brought us his fucking ashes and said he killed himself because he couldn’t live with the _shame_ of being a _freak_. But I know. I know what they did, and I could’ve --”

He sucks in a deep wet breath and snarls, “Don’t talk about him,” and Brad and Lilley are both saying his name but there’s no one behind him anymore and Ray’s stumbling backward, away, out the front door.

 

X

He runs until his breath is wheezing in his chest, until he’s made so many random turns he’s got no idea how to get back to the house.

He’d hid it away for so long. And for what? Brad had been right, that not thinking about it was easier. He doesn’t know how to talk about or even think about it in a way that makes sense. It doesn’t even matter, anyway; they found out, and now he can’t think about anything else.

They’d never known about each other. Up until the scanner lit up for Luke, bright enough for Ray to see the lights from where he’d been hiding in the bushes outside their house, Ray had thought the drones were there for him. He’d never in a million years thought his big brother was like him. And Luke had died believing he was alone.

Ray’s lost in his own world when there’s a scuffling sound on the sidewalk behind him. He’s just starting to turn when there’s a sharp pain on the side of his neck, and everything goes blurry at the edges.

 

X

When he wakes up, everything feels wrong. He tries to believe the others came after him, that he’s back in the safe house somehow. He makes himself open his eyes, but blinding light filters in and he has to close them again.

The walls are white.

Everything’s too bright. His head aches like he got in a fight with Jose Cuervo last night.

There’s a quiet hum surrounding him, not coming from any certain direction. Beyond that there’s no sound at all until a machine next to him clicks on. It whirs to life, a little crescendo of activity. Something moves against Ray’s skin and then there’s a little prick of pain on his arm.

“Open your eyes,” someone says, speaker crackling between words. Ray cracks an eye open. The wall in front of him is darker now, a white panel sliding open to reveal a tinted window. If he squints, he can make out shadows of people inside, one of them leaning over a silver box.

“Joshua Ray Person. Eighteen years of age. Born and raised in Nevada, Missouri. Five foot eight, one hundred forty four pounds.”

Ray bares his teeth.

“You’re a long way from Nevada, Josh.”

Ray laughs. He tastes blood on the back of his tongue. His whole body feels weird.

“I can see already that you’re going to make this difficult. All we need is some basic information. Just some names and dates and locations. If you give us what we need, I can make the pain stop.”

It feels like Ray thinks a seizure might, only hotter. Everything is hotter, building up so fast it feels like it’s not coming from him but going through him, flowing out into the room. He tries to rein it in, but it’s like none of it belongs to him anymore. There’s nothing else in the room but him and the gurney and the machine and he sends a little prayer out to the universe that none of it is flammable and opens his mouth to scream.

Everything starts to fade out again. Ray tries to fight it -- he’ll take awake and in pain over unconscious and helpless any fucking day of the week -- but he’s out in seconds.

It’s already started when he wakes up again. The curtain’s open, but all the guy’s buddies are gone. Ray can almost make out his features, but it doesn’t matter. He’s just another drone in a suit and if Ray weren’t tied down in this room he’d light him up from head to toe so he can see how it feels.

 

X

It gets so he can’t tell how many times they’ve taken him up and down, scorching the ceiling with his screams to unconscious to waking up to a swell of heat that drenches him in sweat that dries as soon as he feels it. He doesn’t know how long he’s been there or how many needle marks are decorating his arms and that’s when the questions start.

They’re simple at first. What’s your name, where were you born, how many people are you working with. Ray turns his head to the side and spits a mouthful of blood across the shiny white floor, more so it’ll stop burning his tongue than as any sort of response.

There are five silhouettes behind the curtain now. His friend at the controls, some guy looming over his shoulder, and then a guy in white, pajama-like sweats with two drones bookending him. Pajama Man comes closer or gets pulled, Ray’s not sure, until he’s pressed up against the glass. He stares at Ray, breath fogging the glass until Ray can barely see his face.

“How many people are you working with, Josh? What are their names?” the lead drone asks for the fourth or fifth time.

He starts to feel it under the coursing heat, a prickle of awareness, like someone’s running a hand over him. Not close enough to touch but close enough that he can feel the air moving between them. Ray clenches his teeth and shoves, heat and anger going out in all directions. He can’t focus on anything. He can’t find the careful control he’s been building for the past ten years, and the thought of losing that terrifies him more than the men watching him ever will.

He pushes harder, verging on desperate, and Pajama Man flinches back. Ray can see his face for a second and he looks nothing but confused. The drones push him back against the glass.

Ray feels something welling up inside him, out of control, a back-draft fueled by his own fear and anger. He twists in the restraints, the pain of the cloth rubbing against his skin barely a distraction from the heat spiraling out of control. He wheezes, tasting smoke. The gurney buckles underneath him, tilting sideways until the restraints are the only thing holding him up. He hears the door open behind him and then shouting and footsteps in the hallway. He reaches out instinctively, trying to pull the heat back in toward him.

It coils in close, wrapping him in a dense heat that makes it hard to breathe. He thinks of letting it go, of sending it out to hold off whoever’s trying to come inside. But he’s too weak to move and he doesn’t even know who’s out there. He holds on as tightly as he can.

He hears the clunk of HAZMAT drone boots and then there’s the soft aching spread of the antidote through his bloodstream.

It’s not enough. He can still feel the heat thrumming through him, weaker but enough that the pain keeps him awake while they strap him to a new gurney and wheel him out of the room.

He can’t keep his eyes open, but he tries to memorize the turns they take, as if it will help, as if all he’ll need for an escape is a mental map back to the room he almost set on fire. Left left right left squeaking wheels as they stop they’re on linoleum maybe, no carpet for the mutants, no, we can’t take them on the elevator together someone’s saying and Ray slits his eyes open and there is Walt. Walt looking older and thin, so thin, frail like a bird, eyes staring up at the ceiling unseeing. There’s dried puke at the corner of his mouth and tubes up his nose. Ray is going to burn every single Org bastard down to ashes and bottle them up and send them home to their families tied up with a bow like a fucking gift.

They wheel Ray into the elevator. The doors close. Ray cries little helpless tears that turn to steam on his skin and pretends he’s asleep until finally he is.

 

X

Nothing’s on fire when he wakes up. There’s an achy warmth under his skin, a fever before the shakes set in, but the muscle-clenching pain of the drug isn’t there.

He breathes in, throat raw, and opens his eyes. The walls are white. The gurney is a little higher, he thinks. There are more restraints. There’s a new machine.

Across the room, Agent Smith and Pajama Man are watching him. Pajama Man’s babysitters wait by the door.

“Why don’t we let you think about things for a while,” the drone says.

And then there’s nothing but pain. Fire racing through him, around him, ripping through his insides like it doesn’t even recognize him. The antidote comes sooner than he thinks it should, strong enough to knock him out. He wakes up to heat again, a buzzing in his ears he slowly realizes is himself, screaming. His mouth is filling with something hot and wet and he tries to turn his head, feels it spilling over and down his cheek. He’s still choking when the antidote kicks in again.

He feels someone trying to sort through his jumbled thoughts the next time they bring him down. Ray starts throwing images at him; the drones in the gym, the tree by the creek, the blurred view from inside the dampening suit. He thinks, randomly, desperately, of his aunt’s old summer house, of sitting in the passenger seat and navigating while Luke drove them to meet their aunt and cousins for the weekend. The quiet hum of the engine, the map of Illinois spread out over his knees. His brother’s off-key voice singing along to the radio. The turn-off outside of Naperville.

He feels the guy in his head latching onto everything with greedy hands. The man feels weak, his touch barely dipping below the surface. Ray can’t tell if it’s real or if maybe he’s the one being played, being lulled into letting down his defenses.

He feels the man jerk away abruptly, and then everything fades out.

He comes to abruptly, awareness filtering back in. An itching creeping touch takes the place of the pain, and Ray tries to focus. He searches for something to think of, to throw out as a distraction, and ends up singing old-school Whitney in his head until the heat starts to rise again.

He pukes at some point. He doesn’t remember doing it, he just feels it on his face the next time Pajama Man starts searching through his head. The intrusion helps him focus, somehow. The pain is different; it feels unreal and too real at the same time.

They’re getting frustrated with Pajama Man. The half-memories weren’t convincing enough. The touches to his mind are turning into desperate jabs, not enough strength to get too deep.

The next round lasts longer. He burns for what feels like years. When they bring him down, he braces for the other man’s mind to brush up against his. What he gets instead feels like a truck barreling right through his defenses, a dam breaking, a swell of panic and pain he thinks is all his own at first.

It’s not. Pajama Man is with him, they are connected, they have combined. Ray is face-to-face with him, even closer, and there’s nothing there that makes sense. No thoughts or anything that feels like a real person, just swirling mindless desperation.

Ray finds himself reaching out without thinking, catching on and holding tight.

 _Please stop_ , he thinks, _please please please_.

The connection is ripped away and then the other man comes barreling back in. Ray feels regret, shame, anger, sees the needle slipping into the man’s track-marked arm like it’s his own. His skin looks freckled, but Jesus, it’s not, and Ray feels sick again.

The man’s presence feels heavy, weighing him down, reaching into every part of him. He moves away from Ray and closer again, and pain washes through him through Ray through both of them like a healing wound reopened.

 _Just give me something_ , he hears feels tastes in the back of his throat. _Anything to give them give you time give me_

 _Time for what?_ Ray thinks, but he’s already offering up a memory.

He gives him the first safe house, bits of the drive through the suburbs and then the house number. He hopes there’s no one there now. That wasn’t how it worked, he knows Rudy told him -- never the same place twice, and there were enough empty houses that they could move every night if they wanted. But he doesn’t know for sure.

It’s all he has to give them, to give either of them a break, so he lets them have it.

He feels the disconnect like a punch to the stomach. In the few seconds he manages to pry his eyes open, he sees the drone turning away from the window, and then he’s drifting and everything’s quiet.

 

X

He hears heels clicking across the floor.

“I hope you haven’t caused any permanent damage,” a woman says.

“Major Lewis,” the drone says, closer and less fuzzy than before. “We were just getting started with the --”

“Don’t bullshit me. You started the second you brought him in.”

“Well. Yes, we’ve been working on him, but we’ve already gotten --” the drone starts to brag.

“You haven’t gotten anything. And even if you had, do you think you’d get the order to act on it?”

“I have gotten some very important information that will --”

“That will blow the game, if you try to act on it.”

There’s a beat of silence. “Are you saying you’ve been -- what, that this guy is --”

“That’s need-to-know,” she says crisply. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to start cleaning up the mess you’ve made.”

“I -- you --” the drone sputters, before making an attempt at composing himself. “With all due respect, ma’am --”

“I don’t need your respect,” she says, derision cutting across the room. “What I need is for you to shut up and stop trying to offer help where it isn’t needed. We have the situation in hand, as long as you haven’t set us back too far.”

“He’s my acquisition.”

“Have you filed intake forms? Did you even file the request to snatch him in the first place?”

Silence.

“I’ll do you the favor of not reporting you, and you’ll do me the favor of unstrapping him and then getting out of my way.”

Ray loses focus for a while. The next thing he feels is weightless, arms wrapped around him carrying him somewhere.

 

X

He holds on to his control until they get to the car. Gloved hands are lifting him into the backseat, and he can feel the cold through the fabric, trying to get through to him. Brad is talking, and Ray tries to listen, but everything feels so cool against his skin. The soft leather of the seat, the air, Brad’s hands. The heat coils and turns inside him.

“Ray,” Brad says, and Ray turns his head, trying to focus. Everything hurts.

Brad pulls away for a moment and then he’s touching Ray’s face, bare cool skin sweeping over his forehead and cheeks. The chill spreads, through his mouth and down his throat into his lungs. Ray breathes.

“--listening to me, Ray?” Brad’s hands move, framing his face. “I need you to focus. Just for a minute, okay?”

Ray nods. He thinks he nods. A wave of dizzy heat rushes over him, so he must move.

“How many times did they dose you, Ray?”

He tries to remember. He tries to focus; this must be important. He tries to think but it all blurs together toward the end, heat and sleep and pain and sticky fingers in his head. He makes a sound, frustration raw in his throat, and Brad wipes his thumbs under Ray’s eyes.

“That’s okay,” Brad says, and the surety of it makes Ray believe it. He curls one hand around the back of Ray’s neck. The other moves down, leaving a chilled trail down Ray’s arm. Brad’s fingers lace through his. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t try to talk, okay? Just squeeze my hand. Once for no, twice for yes, okay?”

Ray squeezes his hand. Once, twice. Brad squeezes back and pulls Ray closer.

“Okay. Was it more than five times?”

Ray curls into the circle of Brad’s arms and squeezes twice. That he knows for sure.

“Okay. More than five. Was it more than ten?”

Ray squeezes twice again. Someone says something, sounding angry, and Brad shushes them. He smooths his other hand across Ray’s chest, and a wave of coolness follows the movement. Ray sinks into it.

“Just a little longer,” Brad says, softer now. “Was it more than fifteen?”

Ray thinks back, tracking in his head the times he remembers waking back up. He doesn’t think it was that many. He squeezes Brad’s hand once, but maybe, it could have been, if he could just fucking focus and remember like Brad’s asking him to he would know.

“Maybe fifteen,” Brad says, louder, talking to someone else. “Close to fifteen, at least.”

Voices start up in the front seat. Brad pulls Ray further into his lap.

“I’m going to give you something to help you sleep. Is that okay?”

Ray squeezes twice. He wants to sleep. He wants Brad to be there when he wakes up. He wants Nate to be there so he can show them Walt, explain how wrong it is for him to be in there looking like that.

“Just sleep,” Brad says. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

The needle barely hurts.


	5. Chapter 5

X

> >>Astounding news out of Washington today. Senator Blake, reported dead after a fiery car crash in Massachusetts on Wednesday, is instead here in D.C., about to address a rapidly growing crowd in front of the Capitol. We now go live to on-the-scene reporter Cindy James. Cindy?
> 
> >>Thanks, Laura. The overall mood here on the Capitol is one of confusion. No one’s quite sure what to make of all this. The Senator was officially reported dead by the Allegany County Sheriff’s Department on Thursday morning, but what we are hearing is that he will appear momentarily to address the crowd here and those viewing--I’m sorry, it appears that Senator Blake is about to step onto the podium, we’ll see what he has to say.
> 
> >>Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you.
> 
> I am here today because there are some things I would like to discuss with you.
> 
> First and foremost, the events of Wednesday night. As many of you know, the Allegany County Sheriff’s Department arrived on the scene to find my car in a ditch, with myself, my wife, and our son trapped inside.
> 
> The news stories have called it a “tragic accident.” “Tragic.” That’s... I would say it’s an apropos word, but in all honesty I don’t believe I’ll know the words to explain this for a very long time.
> 
> But what I do know is that what happened was not an accident. On Wednesday night, we were deliberately and callously run off the road by another car. The person or persons who did this -- who drove the car that killed my wife and my son -- have not yet been caught.
> 
> I do not know who was in that car. I cannot say what their motivation may have been. Some will assume the motive stems from my voting history and anti-mutant actions.
> 
> This may be the case. It may not be. Regardless of motivation, I know the people in that car can only be judged by a court of law and by God. They have made an unjustifiable choice; no matter the strength of their beliefs, what they have done in support of them cannot be defended.
> 
> But I cannot judge them. “He that is without sin among you,” the Bible says, and I am not without sin.
> 
> I am a liar. I am a hypocrite. And I am standing here today not because of any sort of dumb luck or happenstance, but because I am a mutant.

 

X

There’s a stranger leaning over him. Ray feels panic and heat surge through him like they’re not even his, like his car is crashing but he’s watching from the outside as it flips and rolls. The guy looks up from whatever he’s doing and his eyes lock with Ray’s.

“Brad,” he says, not looking away from Ray.

The panic builds. Not Brad. Not him or the others. The Org can’t have them.

“Ray.” Brad is there. He looks okay. Ray tries to focus on his face. Brad smiles down at him. “How do you feel?”

The guy marks something down in a notebook. “I think he feels like he wants to kill me.”

Brad tugs a blanket up over Ray’s chest. “Don’t kill Doc Bryan, Ray.”

Ray looks at the guy. He has a stethoscope around his neck and a bandanna around his head. From what he’s heard about the mythical Doc Bryan, he’d almost expected him to have a cape. Ray traces the line of his arm down until he can feel where his fingers indent the blanket. With some concentration he convinces them to do a passable imitation of the world’s tiniest wave. Bryan raises an eyebrow.

“Hi,” he says. “Good to see your fingers are working. Brad, can you grab Nate for me? Now your toes.”

The way Brad’s whole face shuts down at the mention of Nate stops Ray cold. What the fuck happened while he was gone? Brad is out the door before Ray can try to catch his eye and find out what’s going on.

Bryan taps his pen against Ray’s knee. “Toes,” he says again, pulling the blanket up to expose Ray’s bare feet. Ray closes his eyes, follows his neck down to his chest belly hips, thighs and knees, shins, there are his feet, and he opens his eyes to watch his toes move. Mission accomplished.

“Good,” Bryan says, writing something else down. “Can you talk? Brad said you couldn’t in the car on the way back.”

Ray opens his mouth and tries. Nothing comes out. Bryan gives him some water through a straw, and it hurts to swallow. He shakes his head.

“We’ll try again in a day or two. Your temperature’s running about eight degrees above average right now. Is that normal for you?”

Ray shakes his head and spreads the fingers of his left hand wide.

“Five?”

Ray nods.

“Okay. You were at twenty over when they brought you in.”

Twenty. Ray doesn’t think he’s been higher than 108, even when he went to the hospital for the flu in sixth grade. They’d thought he was going to die.

“Is it normal for your temperature to fluctuate?”

Ray scrunches up his brow. Only when he’s been using his power a lot. He needs Nate to get here so he can communicate through something other than facial expressions.

“You’ve been dropping below normal and then back up to what you’re at now. It happens every couple hours or so. That’s why you’re under the blanket.”

Ray shakes his head. As if on cue, a chill runs through him, and he shivers under the blanket.

 

X

Bryan’s pulling another blanket over Ray when Brad and Nate come into the room.

“Hey,” Nate says, “you feeling all right?”

Ray makes a face, because not really, but he’ll live.

“Yeah, I know the feeling. Listen, I know you’re probably not feeling up to much right now. And Brad says they had Craig with them.”

Ray looks between the two of them, questioning.

“The guy in the sweats,” Brad says. “The psychic.”

Craig. Ray doesn’t think the drones called him by his name the whole time they were in that room.

“If you’re too tired, that’s okay. But we’d really like to know what happened in there. It would help Doc Bryan know what to do to help you get better, and it would tell us if there’s a chance we could get into the facility and get other people out.”

Ray’s exhausted, but he doesn’t even need to think about it. He moves his hand as far as he can, palm up in invitation.

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Brad says. Ray makes a face at him, because yeah, he kind of does. He needs to. Brad’s eyes flick over to Nate, looking upset, and Ray widens his eyes in question. Brad shakes his head. He comes around the bed and sits on the other side.

Nate’s looking at him, face hurt and open, but Brad won’t look up. Nate slides a hand into Ray’s and holds the other out to Brad, who clenches his jaw and doesn’t respond.

“Do you want to see or not?” Nate says, and Brad hesitates and finally gives in, letting Nate wrap his fingers around Brad’s wrist.

Ray’s hand jerks under Nate’s, his body instinctively trying to get away. He tries to force himself still.

“It’s not going to feel the same,” Brad says quietly. He touches Ray’s other hand, cool fingers curling between Ray’s. “He’s not going to hurt you.”

Ray nods. He knows, in his head, but that doesn’t stop a sick clammy feeling from twisting in his stomach.

“Try to relax,” Nate says, and so Ray closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing and on the cool hands touching his. He’s on the third exhale when he feels it, not like pawing hands at all but like sliding open a window and letting a breeze in.

 _Hi_ , Nate says, and it’s just like he’s talking but Ray’s only hearing it in his head.

 _Hi?_

 _This okay?_ Soft concern like water over toes in sand--

 _Holy shit this is weird I can feel you can you feel what I’m feeling?_

 _I can usually feel what you’re feeling. A little bit, at least._

Ray takes a mental half-step back. _What._

 _Sorry. I should have said something. You’re kind of... loud._

 _Oh._

 _I would turn it off, but I can’t focus on blocking and do much else at the same time._

 _It’s okay._

 _Are you ready to show me? I was thinking we could start at the beginning, when you left the safe house. Maybe we can figure out--_

 _No. No, I need to--_

Ray remembers throwing half-memories at the psychic in the facility, shoving them at him to distract from anything real. He doesn’t need to try so hard now, he knows, but he’s not sure how to go about showing Nate things. He thinks of picking up his memory of Walt, cradling it in his hands, holding it out for Nate to see.

It’s like getting dunked underwater. The clarity of Nate in his head is gone, the real world swimming back in around him. Ray opens his eyes to see Nate and Brad staring at him wide-eyed, Nate halfway across the room and Brad looking like he started to go to him and stopped himself halfway into standing up.

Nate makes this awful broken noise, fists clenched at his sides. “Why did you show me that first?”

Ray shakes his head, at a loss. He doesn’t know what’s wrong. He needs to show them so they can get Walt out. He holds his hand out again. Nate takes it.

He doesn’t show him the elevator again. He goes back, searching through to find the best memories, long sunburned summers and all-night movie marathons and spilling all their secrets to each other but the most important one, because as close as they were Ray could never get past the fear he’d carried with him since the first time he let off a spark. They’d bought comics together and stolen candy from the gas station and learned to play basketball and to drive and to kiss -- Ray tries to pull that one back but it’s out there already, Nate can see it, Nate is. Oh.

Nate is crying.

 _Sorry sorry I don’t know what I did_ , Ray thinks, wonders if there’s a way to hug Nate inside his head, and Nate laughs.

 _He looks so young. You didn’t know?_

 _Not until he left me_ , and oh, that’s not -- _not until he left._

Nate shows him, then, what Walt found when he left -- a man leading Walt into a high-ceilinged room, Nate there to meet him with Rudy and Poke waiting in the next room; a handful of months together in an abandoned hotel they’d made their own; Walt teleporting from room to room, disappearing from the kitchen and reappearing on the stairs; Nate and Poke turning themselves into near-perfect copies of Walt, Nate never quite able to replicate his voice; a mission gone wrong, Nate caught in the cross-fire, watching helplessly as Walt gets dragged into a containment truck. Ray feels it all like he’s there, an ache in his chest that goes from sweetness to devastation to a quiet desperate anger he can’t let go of.

Nate eases away, letting Ray come back to himself a little.

 _I’m sorry._

 _For what?_

 _I hated him for leaving. I knew why, it wasn’t hard to figure it out, but I hated him because he got out and I didn’t._

 _He never told us about you. We would have--._

 _He didn’t know about me either. Nobody knew._

Ray feels something like a hand on his shoulder, even though he knows no one in the real world has moved.

 _And then we all did. I never thought about it. I’ve never met anyone who’s been active for as long as you have who didn’t get picked up by the Org years ago._

Ray doesn’t even know how to respond to that, like oh, yes, he’s so lucky that he got to spend years hiding himself away from the entire world and didn’t get caught quite as quickly as everyone else. But fuck, he _is_ lucky. A few nights in a facility compared to however long Nate was there is probably nothing.

 _It’s not really the same_ , Nate says. _They weren’t torturing me for information. I mean, there were experiments and it was -- but it’s hard to compare._

 _Oh. You can still hear me even when -- so anything I think, you can --_

 _Yep. Sorry, that’s the downside of a direct connection. So, you know. Don’t think about elephants._

The first thing Ray thinks of is Dumbo, which is kind of embarrassing, and he can feel a wave of amusement wash over him before Nate sobers.

 _We should keep going, before we tire you out too much. I need to see everything. From the beginning._

 _I can just tell you --_

 _It’s better if I can see. Brad, too._

He can feel Nate reaching for him, coaxing, and he tries to pull away. _It’s going to hurt you._

 _That’s okay. I can help you remember what you told them. Maybe we can figure out how they knew where to find you._

 

X

They go through everything twice. It’s a little easier the second time, more of a sense of detachment as Brad and Nate start to strategize. Ray tunes out a little once they’re not in his head anymore. He wants to know what they’re planning, but his body’s starting to hurt a little and he can feel a monster of a headache starting behind his eyes.

“We should go through the building again,” Nate says. “Get a better idea of the layout.”

“He needs to rest,” Bryan says. “I can come get you when he wakes up again.”

Brad and Nate reluctantly agree. Ray lets himself relax into the bed. He drifts, catching little bits of conversation. They’re sketching out a map, he thinks.

“The layout might not matter anyway. They might move him again, if they figure out that wasn’t Major Lewis. They could have been moving him when Ray saw him.”

Nate sounds more tired than angry, almost defeated.

“Maybe you should go to one of your sources, then,” Brad says.

“Brad,” Nate says.

“I know. I know you can’t tell us, and that’s fine. I just. You weren’t here, and we needed you. What if Poke had been farther away?”

“I came as fast as I could What else could I have done? Do you want me to stop?”

“I want you to be careful.”

“I need to do this. You know that.”

There’s a long beat of silence.

“I do know. I know _you_ , and I trust you, but we both know how deep in this you are. You’re no good to anyone if you run yourself into the ground. Or if you lose yourself.”

“I have Mike,” Nate says. “I have -- I’m not pushing it too far, I swear. Maybe farther than I would have gone a year ago, but things are different now.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“No,” Nate says, a touch of amusement in his voice. “You’re just worrying.”

“I’m going to worry until you’re back. However long that is.”

Nate lets out a breath. “I might be awhile,” he says quietly. “And I don’t know... when I get back, I don’t know if I’m --”

“I’ll take care of it,” Brad says. He sounds so sure.

“I know,” Nate says. “I need to go.”

“Mike’s waiting for you?”

“Yeah. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“I’ll tell them.”

“‘Kay. Goodnight, Ray.”

It’s still kind of creepy when he does that. Ray wiggles his fingers. He listens to Brad and Nate leave and then lets himself sleep.

 

X

> COLUMBUS, OH --
> 
> Mutant and activist David McGraw has been arrested today in connection with the death of the family of Senator Blake. At this time, the charges against him have not been released.
> 
> Several sources have told us that McGraw is one of a group of about a dozen mutants who escaped from a Connecticut facility five years ago. A number of the escapees are believed to have orchestrated the Westport Protest, an anti-Org protest in Washington that resulted in four deaths and hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage.

 

X

Doc Bryan stays with them for a while after that, to make sure Ray doesn’t have any other complications or side effects. There are a few other people with him -- a guy named Garza, a woman Ray thinks is named Jo, and Poke, the guy who’d driven the other getaway car back in Nevada. Ray only really sees them when his door’s open and they’re passing by in the hallway.

After that first night, Ray doesn’t see Nate for a while. A week, maybe, and he can tell by the deepening shadows under Brad’s eyes that he didn’t just sleep through Nate and Wynn coming back.

The others come and sit with him when they can. Sometimes he wakes up enough to write notes on a legal pad someone left on the nightstand, and they carry on something approaching an actual conversation. Mostly he listens to them talking to each other, about the weather or the latest news story on Senator Blake.

Rudy reads to him from a book of Chinese fables. Trombley usually falls asleep in the chair after ten minutes or so.

Lilley hovers by the door and tries to apologize, for not talking to Ray and for telling the others what happened to Luke after Ray left. Ray rolls his eyes and writes “come hug me asshole” on the note pad.

His recovery seems painfully slow. The temperature thing starts to get better after a few days, and once he stops overheating, he starts to get his energy back. His control is all out of whack, though, and the harder he tries to get it back, the worse the response seems to be. Doc Bryan isn’t exactly the patient doting nurse type, but the exercises he has Ray go through every day seem to help.

Somewhere around day four, Brad slips into the room just after Bryan leaves. It’s the first time they’ve been alone since Ray got back. Brad closes the door behind him and sets a plate with a sandwich and apple slices on Ray’s lap, and a fresh glass of water on the nightstand.

“You tired?” Brad asks. Ray makes a face and shrugs. Yeah, but he’s tired all the time. Brad sits down on the edge of the bed. Ray starts in on the apple slices, and Brad stares at his hands without saying anything.

Ray’s on his first bite of sandwich -- turkey on rye, pickles, and mustard, because Brad has some sort of freaky ability to remember things like that -- when Brad finally starts talking.

“That isn’t how that should have been handled,” Brad says, talking about the night Ray left the safe house. Ray shrugs; maybe Brad overreacted a little, but Ray’s the one who freaked out and left. “I mean that. Even if he were in a facility, that doesn’t mean -- that’s not a judgment any of us can make of you. There are four of us, and we’ve been trying to get Walt out for months. I can’t imagine... when I was in high school, even when I knew how to use my power, I can’t imagine trying to get someone out of a facility or a containment truck or -- or a jail cell. Not by myself.”

Ray sets his sandwich down. He breathes slowly, carefully.

“Don’t be mad at Lilley for telling us,” Brad says, interpreting Ray’s lack of response as anger. Ray shakes his head. He’s not mad at anyone. He’d rather Lilley told them, anyway; he’s not really up to the challenge right now.

“Ray,” Brad says, voice gone cracked and worried. Ray just shakes his head again, hating that he doesn’t have his voice back yet, hating that he wouldn’t know what to say even if he did. Brad takes the plate off his lap. Ray turns blindly toward him, and then Brad’s pulling him closer and Ray’s breathing wetly into his chest.

They stay like that until Ray stops shaking, and then Brad shifts them over to lean against the pillows. He curls a hand over the back of Ray’s neck.

“You should sleep,” Brad says softly. Ray shakes his head. He doesn’t want to to go to sleep. “Should I tell you a story?” Brad asks, voice teasing, but when Ray nods, he wraps his fingers around Ray’s wrist and says, “I met Poke first.”

 

X

Ray doesn’t know if it’s from being forced awake and asleep so many times at the facility, or just from pure exhaustion, but his sleep schedule is about as fucked up as it’s ever been. It was worse right after Luke was taken, when Ray would go days without really sleeping, but most of the time insomnia’s not one of his neuroses.

He wakes up after a nap and the house is dark and quiet. His voice is still stubbornly missing, but he’s strong enough to move around a little, so he makes his way out of bed and down the hallway. The stairs take a while, but his mouth feels like a desert and the cup that’s usually on his bedside table is missing. He vaguely remembers someone taking it to get him a refill and never coming back. Fucking secret impromptu meetings mean nobody ever gets anything done.

He’s downed two full glasses in the kitchen and is eyeing the stairs -- coming down was okay, but going back up is going to be a bitch -- when he hears something in the living room. Trombley’s on the couch, looking wide awake.

“Hey,” he says when Ray sits down next to him.

Ray nudges him in response and waits until Trombley looks up at him. He tries to ask why Trombley’s awake with a raised eyebrow and a crook of his mouth.

Trombley doesn’t answer. He just rubs a hand over his eyes and says, “Rudy says you know Walt.”

Ray nods. The whole house must know, if Rudy’s telling Trombley. It’s weird to not be carrying it so close anymore.

“Are you...” Trombley’s got a pillow in his lap. He’s picking at the braided fringe along the edge. “You knew him for a long time?”

Ray nods again. He holds up six fingers. They’d met when they were ten, after Walt’s parents divorced and his dad brought him to live closer to his side of the family in Kansas City.

“Six years?” Trombley asks. Ray nods. “So you were his best friend and stuff.”

Ray nods again, pulling his bare feet up off the hardwood and onto the couch. Trombley un-loops the knot.

“He told me about you,” Trombley says, picking at the braided threads.

“What,” Ray croaks, because what. Nate said Walt never told them anything about where he came from.

“When I first came,” Trombley says, “they wouldn’t let me do anything either. I always had to stay behind, and they left Walt with me most’ve the time ‘cause he was the next-newest. And mostly we just sat around, but one time the safe house still had a bunch of other people’s stuff in it. Not just like, furniture and dishes like we usually get, but pictures and clothes and stuff. And we found some booze and got really drunk.

“I got really sick and he sat in the bathroom with me while I puked, and he started telling me about this kid he knew back home and how one time he got sick in gym and puked all over the teacher. And it was really funny at first but then --”

“I went to the hospital,” Ray says, managing a solid attempt at a whisper. “My temperature was a hundred and eight.”

Trombley looks at him, eyes big and shiny in the darkness. “He said you were his best friend and then he left you. He made me promise not to tell anybody.”

“What else,” Ray says.

“He said someone found out about him. They were -- there was a raid, and he got out but then he was scared they’d come after you if he called you or anything. And I thought it was better if he didn’t ‘cause he said you were normal, and you didn’t know about him. So I didn’t tell anyone.”

“He didn’t know about me?” Ray asks.

“He said you weren’t like him.” Trombley moves to the next knot of fringe.

They sit for a while, and then Trombley helps Ray back up the stairs. Ray lies in bed for a while and tries to remember if there were ever any signs that Walt knew. In the end it probably doesn’t matter. He’d been trying to protect Ray, in one way or another. Ray had tried to protect Walt, too; if he hadn’t seen Walt in the facility, he’s not sure if how long it would have taken him to tell the others about him.

He thinks about the creek, about what might have happened if Walt had stumbled on Ray practicing one day. If they would have ended up running away together, or if it would have gone the same way, Walt on the run from the Org and Ray trapped at home. If maybe they both would have found their way to Brad and the others. There’s no way to know.

 

X

There’s an itch under Ray’s skin, and he can’t tell if it’s real, some invisible wound that’s still healing, or if his need to find Walt has taken over his whole body as well as his mind.

He expects to have to fight them, to drag himself down the stairs and demand to be let in on their next Top Secret Saving-The-World meeting. One morning he wakes up to see them pulling chairs into his room, making a half-circle around his bed. Lilley, Rudy and Trombley, and Poke, Garza, and Jo. Doc Bryan follows them in and stands by the door.

“Hey,” Lilley says, grinning at Ray as he settles into a straight-backed dining room chair.

“Hey. So I’m finally getting an invite to the party?”

“I hope you’re not expecting balloons,” Brad says from the doorway.

“As long as there’s cake, homes.”

Brad comes around the circle to sit on the bed next to Ray. He unfolds a map and lays it across Ray’s lap. Three bright red x’s stand out on its surface.

“This is us,” Brad says, pointing to the center x. “Over here is where you were held. And this is where we think they’ll take Walt next.”

“The problem is that we don’t know when,” Rudy says. “It could be days, it could be weeks. It could be tonight. There’s no way to know.”

“We’re monitoring every channel from here to fucking Charleston, but we don’t get everything that comes down the wire,” Poke adds. “And when we do, it’s usually late. If they move him fast after they put in the transfer docs, we could miss it.”

“The increase in violence isn’t helping,” Jo says. “If anything, the Org is going to beef up security as a result. And if this faction is willing to kill a family because of the way someone votes, we need to get a handle on what they’re planning next.”

“Wait, I thought they caught that guy?” Ray says. He feels like he’s missed everything important.

“McGraw was a scapegoat,” Poke says. “I mean, he’s crazy enough to do something like that, for sure. But he hasn’t got enough of a brain left under all the crazy to plan something out.”

They go over everything they’ve gotten so far, all the half-confirmed pieces of intel and leads they’ve gathered. Ray tells them what he remembers, which isn’t much. There’s nothing they can do right now but keep trying. Poke says he’s meeting up with someone he connected with on the message boards, who knows someone who has intel on experiments being done with a teleporter.

They wrap up and everyone heads downstairs, leaving Ray with Doc Bryan and Brad. The two of them have a silent conversation over Ray’s head and Bryan follows the others, pulling the door shut behind him.

Brad settles on the chair next to the bed. “We’re going to find him,” he says. “It just takes time.”

 

X

Ray starts out propped up against the pillows, reading a book. He’s spent so long in the stupid bed that every little bump in the mattress makes him feel sore and kind of miserable. He moves around, turning so his head’s at the other end, then laying on his stomach, and finally settling on his back, sideways across the bed with his head hanging off one side and his knees hooked over the other.

The book is kind of boring, as it turns out, and Ray drifts off. When he starts climbing back toward the surface, there’s a thread of coolness starting in his hand and spiralling out through the rest of him.

He turns his head without opening his eyes. The coolness ebbs and flows back through him.

Brad’s standing over him, face unreadable. Ray’s got one arm flung out, palm up, and Brad’s standing close enough that his hand hangs down above Ray’s, fingers almost touching Ray’s palm. He holds the thread of coolness steady.

Ray flexes his fingers a little, gives Brad a little nudge of warmth in response. The corner of Brad’s mouth curls up, but it does nothing to hide the tired disappointment in his eyes.

“Hey, are we -- oh,” Lilley’s saying, starting to enter the room. He stops in the doorway. “Um. Everyone’s -- they’ll be here in a minute.”

He ducks back into the hallway.

Brad turns back to Ray. He opens his mouth, a soft sound coming out like he’s working his way up to a word. He stops. Ray raises a brow, questioning, and Brad just shakes his head. He gives Ray a real smile, full and sort of bewildered.

By the time the others come in, Brad’s in the chair by the window and Ray’s back up against the pillows. Wynn’s there, looking twice as exhausted as Brad. Nate’s still gone.

“We got nothing,” Trombley says, folding his arms and glaring at the wall.

“Not nothing,” Brad corrects, but he’s shaking his head. “We got a couple leads. Nothing that’s going to get us anywhere soon.”

Rudy scrubs a hand over his eyes and up into his hair. “Nothing concrete on the boards, either. There’s been a uptick in raids and disappearances, but...”

“Nothing we can take a risk on,” Wynn summarizes.

Lilley drops down on the foot of Ray’s bed, shoulders slumped. “So what happens now?”

“We keep looking,” Trombley says. “There’s gotta be something.”

Brad nods, decisive. “I can --”

“Brad,” Wynn says, a hint of admonishment but mostly just _worry_ in his tone. “You won’t find anything in the middle of the night.”

Brad reluctantly agrees, and everyone shuffles quietly off to bed. Ray feels a chill down to his toes long after Brad’s gone to his own room. It starts to fade as Ray’s drifting off to sleep.

 

X

When Nate comes running in, there’s a moment where Ray doesn’t quite recognize him. It’s Nate, but older maybe, face tired and worn. It’s gone in a second, and maybe he’s crazy, maybe he imagined it, but maybe it’s what Nate takes off before he comes home, what he puts on outside to get the things they need.

He’s been gone for two weeks. The others bring back intel from him sometimes, but it’s always second- or third-hand.

He looks right past Ray as he cuts across the living room and heads down to the basement, where Brad and Rudy have been meditating or balancing their chakras or maybe punching each other in the face to express their frustrations for the past hour or so. Poke gets up as Nate passes him and follows him down the stairs. The door clicks shut behind them.

Ray waits.

The basement empties out about ten minutes later, and everyone heads off in different directions.

Nate gives Ray a nod and heads out the door. No one follows him. A car engine starts up outside.

“His hair was the wrong color,” Ray says, half to himself.

Poke, in the middle of sorting through a pile of maps, turns. “What?”

Ray just shakes his head, looking after Nate. “Nothing. What the fuck was that about?”

“They’re moving Walt. Tonight.”

“When do we leave?” Ray asks.

Doc Bryan looks up from where he’s still sitting in the armchair, now reading the Politics section. “BLAKE AND FERRANDO: SECRET ALLIANCE?” the front page blares, with a blurry picture of two men in suits entering a building. He looks at Ray and then at Brad.

Brad hooks a finger in the collar of Ray’s shirt and pulls him into the kitchen. Ray lets himself be led but ducks away once they’re in the kitchen.

Brad leans back against the counter and just looks at him.

“You think I can just sit back and wait for you to go get him?”

“You can sit and wait here, or you can sit and wait in the van.”

“I’m sick and fucking tired of waiting. That’s all we ever do. Wait for shitty intel that won’t get us anywhere, wait for Nate to come back and not tell us where he’s been, wait for some perfect mission that’s gonna fix how fucked up everything is.

“You saw what Walt looked like. They’ve got some Pit of Despair shit going on in there and we’re all just sitting here while they drain the life out of him. We should be going now. We should have gone the second Nate looked into my fucking brain and saw his face. I don’t get why Nate wasn’t mounting up instead of running off to play spy with Mike.”

Brad raises an eyebrow when Ray pauses to take a breath. “You finished?”

“Fuck no. I have been playing house with you for two god damn months. I’ve put up with all of you refusing to let me sit at the grown-ups’ table and I haven’t stayed up past my bedtime and I got fucking tortured for you and still didn’t tell them shit. And now you’re about to go get my best fucking friend who I haven’t seen in two years and you expect me to sit around and wait when I could be doing something to get him out. I’ve been sitting around doing nothing for too fucking long.”

Ray settles back against the wall. “Okay. Now I’m done.”

Brad just looks at him for a long moment, assessing him for long enough that Ray starts to fidget, tugging at his sleeves. Brad pushes off the counter and comes over to settle against the wall next to Ray.

“When did you manifest?” Brad asks.

Ray looks over. Brad’s looking back, waiting, so fucking patient. “When I was eight,” Ray says.

“Yeah?”

Ray nods. “Lit my shoes on fire.”

Brad grins. “I was thirteen. I went to take a shower and turned the water into ice.”

Ray laughs out loud, picturing it.

“Shut up,” Brad says. “It was very traumatizing.

“Yeah, I bet,” Ray says, but it’s hard to sound sympathetic when you’re giggling.

Brad shakes his head, faking offense. His hand curls around Ray’s wrist, tingling cool through his bloodstream.

Ray didn’t even notice the rising heat until now, still edging up from his surge of frustration. It’s like it’s hanging by a thread, connected but not quite under his control. Like he’s a kid again, confused as fuck by what’s happening and clueless as to what to do about it.

Ray leans back against the wall, sliding sideways into Brad.

“I’m not trying to,” he says, hoarseness creeping back into his voice. He tries to relax into the wave of coolness Brad’s pushing toward him.

“This is why I’m saying no,” Brad says, soft but firm. “You’re going to get your strength back, and your control will follow. But it’s not going to be back by tonight.”

Ray shakes his head, but he can’t fight it. He knows he’s got nothing to offer the mission right now.

Brad’s thumb slides across the inside of his wrist, sending a little shiver through him. Ray closes his eyes.

“What do you want to know?” Brad asks.

Ray thinks. There are a million things. But only one right now. “Are you going to get him out?”

“Yes.”

Ray lets out a breath. “I’ll wait here.”

When Doc Bryan comes in, they’re sitting on the floor, Brad still holding Ray’s wrist. Bryan says Brad’s name, and Brad gets up to head back down to the basement. The thread of coolness hangs on until he’s out the door.

 

X

Ray peels a strip of tape away from the window frame and looks out past the curtains, watching the van disappear down the block. He goes upstairs. Lilley’s iPod is on his bed, headphones laid out and ready. Van Halen’s playing when Ray puts the earbuds in, volume turned up loud.

The music drowns his thoughts out for a while. Sometime later, a door closes down the hall, making him jump. When he goes out into the hallway, someone’s looking into one of the bedrooms. He turns toward Ray.

“It’s still creepy when you do that,” Ray says. Nate looks up with Ferrando’s face, startled.

“What?” he says.

“Hey! You got the voice down. I would’ve thought you’ve been too busy to practice.”

Nate stares at him for a long moment. “I had some help,” he finally says. He shifts the stack of folders in his hands.

“I thought you were meeting everyone,” Ray says. “They left a while ago.”

Recognition dawns on Nate’s face, like he’s figuring out that Ray’s in on the plan. “Yes. Yes, I just needed to drop this off first. I didn’t want to take it into the field.”

“Cool. The devil mask part of the plan?”

Nate’s brow furrows and then he laughs, abrupt and strange and exactly the way Ray remembers it from seeing Ferrando on television. “The devil. That’s funny. I just need to put these in my office.”

Ray blinks. The closest thing Nate has to an office is the basement, but that’s everyone’s. And the facility’s half an hour away, at least, and the others left twenty minutes ago or so. So either Nate’s really, really late, or Ray just called Ferrando the devil to his fucking face.

“I can take them,” he says, still able to pull air into his lungs, somehow. His whole body feels frozen.

Ferrando holds out the folders; Ray’s hands come up automatically to take them.

“Ah,” Ferrando says. “He doesn’t have an office.”

Ray shakes his head, swallowing thickly.

Ferrando gives him a once-over. He smiles. Not the kind of smile he puts on for the press, or the one Nate gave him that didn’t look right. It’s almost sort of rueful, and his eyes are tired but warm, watching Ray stare at him.

“Tell Nate something for me, Ray,” he says. Ray nods blankly. “Tell him, ‘well played.’”

He turns and makes his way down the hallway. Holy fuck. How did he even find the safe house? And he knows Ray’s name, _fuck_. Ray goes to follow him, to make sure he really leaves, and the top folder almost slips out of his hands. He catches it on instinct, the folder flipping open as he grabs it.

> TRANSFER ORDER
> 
> CONFIDENTIAL
> 
> MEMORANDUM FOR
> 
> CHIEF OF INTAKE STAFF, STONERIDGE BRAVO FACILITY 358 Cobun Valley Lane, Morgantown WV 26508-3968
> 
> RE: DETAINEE #19759 : WALTER LEE HASSER

The folders tumble as they fall, papers flying everywhere. Ray grabs a handful at random. There’s a picture of Ray strapped in at the facility, blood smeared across his face. A memo approving the use of a departmental asset to interrogate a detainee. An intake form for someone named Shawn Patrick. Ray sinks to the ground and starts to read as the front door clicks shut.

 

X

He doesn’t know how long he’s been pouring over the papers when he feels it -- a sense of fear and panic so strong it takes him over for a moment. He tries to focus on the stack of photographs in his hands, but it’s like he’s being pulled sideways, a frame being pulled in over what he’s seeing. There are flames and someone’s screaming, pleading, and there’s something cold and hard pressed against his forehead.

 _Ray Ray Ray Ray you have to help him_ Nate says in his head, cutting in and out like a radio transmission. _Ray._

 _Help who?_ Ray tries to ask, but then everything stops, the world settling back into place. _Nate?_

Then he’s in Nate’s head, he thinks, feeling sweat drip down his back, holding Walt closer in his arms, trying to ignore the gravel digging into his knees through his pants. There are people running and something Ray’s pretending isn’t gunfire. The whole left side of his vision is in flames, a single-story building halfway consumed by fire.

Ray can’t see any of the others. _Nate,_ he thinks, _tell me what you need me to do._

 _Walt’s going to bring you to us,_ Nate says. _I need you not to fight it. And try not to throw up._

Ray thinks, _Walt,_ and his mind flashes to the transfer order, the pile of papers and photographs, Ferrando’s smile in the dim light of the hallway. _Jesus Christ, what--_ Nate starts to say, and then it feels like Ray’s slipping underwater and surfacing all in one twisted moment and then Nate’s saying _Breathe, breathe,_ and Ray is thinking, _Walt Walt Walt Walt--_

 _You have to run,_ Nate says, so Ray runs, up over a hill and into complete fucking chaos. The building is in the middle of a field. Nate is across the field, Walt in his arms, drone standing over them both with a gun to Nate’s head. Lilley and Trombley are to his right, being cuffed by more drones with guns. He doesn’t see the others anywhere.

He reaches out to the fire, letting himself sink into its heat until he runs up against resistance in the middle. He circles it, touching it with his energy. It’s a solid wall against the flames. He can feel the chill seeping into him.

“On your knees! Hands in the air!” There’s a skinny drone with eyes too close together shoving a gun in Ray’s face. Metal. It’s so easy. The drone doesn’t feel it right away through his gloves, but soon he’s dropping the gun and watching it melt into a puddle at his feet. He looks up at Ray in terror.

Ray bares his teeth. The pussy fucker turns and runs.

The other guns are next. He can’t do them all at once, but once he gets one started, the energy starts to feed back into him. The next one’s easier, and the one after that goes even faster. He wraps himself around the machine gun in the truck on the other side of the field and tugs at it like an unraveling thread. It takes the back half of the truck with it when it goes.

He turns to the fire. Someone’s shouting at him as he goes. He tunes it out.

He’s put out plenty of fires before. Nothing as big as this, but the principle’s the same. This time he doesn’t try to dissipate the energy. This time he wraps himself around it and pulls it into himself.

He can feel it building inside him. He feels like he’s expanding, his own energy stretching at the seams to make room. It feels fucking amazing and terrifying at the same time. It’s going to take him over, he thinks, or no, it’s going to destroy him. He gives a final desperate pull and then it’s his, all of it, more heat and energy than he’s ever felt. The fire melts into his and when he opens his eyes, the flames are gone and Brad’s lying in the center of the building, a dome of ice around him.

Everything around Ray is hot. He feels the thrum of Nate’s body, the lesser heat of Walt’s, the muffled warmth of the drone coming up behind him. He builds a wall behind him, heat rippling up toward the sky. Someone screams. He can feel it.

He can’t feel Brad at all.

He picks his way through the rubble, walking across the cooling embers of the building until he reaches the cold. It sends an ache through him, an itch in the one spot on his back he can’t reach, a wrongness that settles into his bones. He has to get to Brad.

He starts to build himself up, stretch out the heat and fold it over the top of the cold like a blanket. It feels solid underneath him, too cold to break through. He pushes as hard as he can. Nothing.

Something tickles at the edges of his awareness, a source of heat somewhere past the building. The wall expands with a nudge, pushing outward, surrounding Ray and Brad. They are alone. He nudges the cold, careful, gentle. _You know me,_ he thinks. _You remember me. It’s safe now._

He pulls back, tugging the cold with him. He pulls, and they stretch out to the wall, running along its edges, dipping into its corners. Ray feels the chill wash over him and lets it sink it to him, lets it bury itself in his heat and turn to warmth itself.

He turns back to the wall of cold, letting himself sink into it, like dipping his toes into water. He unravels it, pulling the strands into himself and twisting them into something warm.

The cold shudders away, bending for him so easily he’s a little startled when he makes another push forward and runs into Brad. And with Brad, it stops being easy.

He’s so cold and still. Ray doesn’t know how long he’s been like this. He doesn’t know if Brad pushed too hard keeping himself safe from the flames and got stuck, or if he got dosed again and his powers are going haywire. It doesn’t matter.

His hands. He remembers his body, that all of him used to be contained inside his skin, that his hands on Brad were what saved them both before. He can’t remember how to make his muscles work, but the energy knows the way just fine; he nudges and tugs and bends until he’s reaching out and pressing his hands against Brad’s chest.

The heat within him swirls, eager to go to work, and Ray has to pull back and slow everything down. He was weaker before, without the strength of the fire coursing through him. And Brad was stronger, conscious, breathing. Ray pulls at the tiniest corner of himself and feeds it forward carefully, easing it toward Brad, wrapping it around him.

He remembers how it felt before, the easy loop of heat warming Brad up. The heat moves through Brad’s chest, from Ray’s left hand to his right, and then it expands. He helps it spread until he can feel it working through Brad’s fingers and toes and lungs and the thin skin of his ears.

Brad is warmer. Brad is better, but he doesn’t breathe. His blood is still. Ray tries every gentle move he can think of, urging everything inside Brad to use the energy he’s feeding him. Nothing happens.

Ray pulls and then pushes, sending a jolt of heat into Brad. Another. A third, and Brad shudders under his hands. A fourth, and he can feel Brad’s heart start to beat.

Something hits the wall. Ray turns; there’s a drone standing just outside the outline of the building, gun raised. Ray reaches out and turns the gun to liquid in his hands.

The drone drops to his knees, screaming. Past him, Nate is standing now, holding Walt in his arms. Walt is awake, staring across the field at Ray and Brad.

Ray locks eyes with Nate. _Take care of them_ , he thinks, and Nate shakes his head, denial automatic. _I trust you._

Walt mouths his name, and Ray catches the energy of it coming toward him. He looks at Walt and lets a smile spread across his face. _Missed you_ , he thinks.

He feels something soft and cool pulling him back toward Brad, and he turns to see Brad looking up at him, eyes wide. He says something, but Ray can’t hear a word.

Brad’s hand comes up, cupping Ray’s face. Brad leans up, and Ray moves toward him, and then Brad’s mouth is on his, a rush of cold moving through him. The world slips sideways.


	6. Chapter 6

X

> ...legislation that passed only after a passionate speech on the senate floor by Senator Blake of Maryland, who revealed himself to be a mutant after...
> 
> ...facilities will be closed pending further review of the treatment of mutant residents and the experiments being performed with the approval of the Org. Mutants currently housed in facilities will be either released or transferred to the nearest...

 

X

Everything aches. The pain isn’t sharp, but it’s steady, like every party of his body ran a marathon without stretching. His eyelids feel too heavy. There are birds outside, muted but cheerful. He hears other noises, soft footsteps and muffled voices that sound far away, down a hallway or on another floor.

He doesn’t realize he’s warm until the heat starts to fade. Relief sweeps over him, a soft wave of coolness that makes breathing suddenly easier. He traces it back and runs into Brad.

“Hey,” Brad says. Something scrapes across the floor, and then Brad’s voice is closer. “How’re you feeling?”

Ray opens his mouth automatically to respond; nothing comes out.

“Don’t try to talk,” Brad says. “Are you in pain?”

Ray nods. He turns his face toward Brad. The sliver of light that comes through when he cracks his eyes open is blinding. It’s like he’s trying to look at the sun.

“Here,” Brad says, and Ray listens to him walk around the bed and -- close the curtains, he thinks. “Better?”

Ray opens his eyes halfway. There’s a lamp on in the corner, but as long as Ray doesn’t look straight toward it, his eyes seem okay.

Brad sits back down. He reaches out and touches Ray’s wrist. “One to five, how bad is it?”

Ray folds his thumb down over his palm. He feels coolness wash over him, and folds his pinkie down too.

“You’ve been out for two months,” Brad says softly. “You -- we all thought you were dying. I couldn’t feel you at all.”

He folds and unfolds the magazine in his hands while he talks. Ray blinks at him, fuzzy-eyed.

“I don’t really remember what happened. I was going into the facility, and then the fire just took over everything. I just remember when you came to get me. Rudy says you were beautiful.”

Ray tries to coax his face into a question mark, and he succeeds enough that Brad explains. “You were glowing, I guess, and -- here. I can show you.”

He unfolds the magazine and it falls open to a page near the middle. Both pages are a collage of pictures; on the right side, there are pictures of Ferrando, and Blake, and the picture of Ray strapped to the gurney, bloody and unconscious. The left side is mostly taken up by a shot of the field. It’s dark, the edges of trees and vehicles just barely defined.

Ray thinks, at first, that it was taken before he’d put out the fire in the building completely. But the arcing flame in the center of the frame is leaping up from one spot in the center of the destruction, and what he thought was just the bottom of the flame isn’t part of the fire at all. He can’t see Brad, or where Ray’s reaching out to touch him. He can’t see much of anything other than the flames leaping high into the air behind him.

Brad sets the magazine down on the bed. “You scared the shit out of everyone. Half those drones probably pissed their pants at the sight of you.”

Ray smiles up at him. Brad grins back, and then his face falls, eyes going sad.

“Ray,” he says, curling his fingers over Ray’s wrist. “Walt’s gone.”

Ray shakes his head. No. No. They got him back. They saved him.

“We got him out. We brought him -- for a few days, but he was hurt too badly. Doc tried, but Walt...”

Ray opens his mouth, trying to make him finish, but no words will come out. Brad’s fingers tighten, squeezing, cutting him off.

“He asked Nate to let him go.”

Ray does make a sound then, low and raw and painful. He tries again to force the words out, but nothing comes.

“Don’t,” Brad says, reaching up to touch his face. “Your vocal chords are scorched. Most of you is, I think. You were on your way to burning yourself up.”

Ray needs to scream at someone. He needs Nate to come in so he can say all the words building up inside him. He tries to say Nate’s name, at least, and Brad watches his mouth and gets it even though no sound comes out. He pulls back, shaking his head.

“Nate isn’t...” He pauses, swallowing thickly. “We haven’t seen him since Walt died. Not in person, at least.”

He turns the magazine over. Blake and Ferrando are on the cover, and the headline swims before Ray’s eyes.

“If you’d asked before we left, I would have told you what the real plan was. We needed Walt back, but we knew -- he’s -- he _was_ what they considered a High Value Asset. His long-term placements would always be in the facilities with the most security, and those facilities would be the ones that stored the information we needed.

“The experiments and drugs and everything were never officially sanctioned. They were approved by the higher-ups, but nothing in the Mutant Safety and Control Act allows them to allocate funds toward things like that. We knew if it went public that they were still doing it -- that they’d gone further, trying to make super-mutants like Nate -- that they’d have to open up an investigation and put everything else on hold.

“There was no way we could ever find a record of where the documents were being stored. But transfer and intake papers were always stored on the mainframe, and the encryptions they used were so basic, my twelve-year-old niece could probably hack it with her iPhone.

“So we tracked Walt, because we knew he’d lead us to the documents. The plan was always to get them both. We barely got out with Walt. And then we came back and found the papers. We got them to shut everything down. I don’t -- I think it was worth it. It has to be.”

Ray isn’t sure anything is worth waking up to find Walt and Nate both gone, and he knows it shows on his face.

“I know. They’re just going to open up new facilities underground. And eventually there will be new legislation and the facilities will open back up. There’s too much fear going around for them to stay closed. But this gives us time, and it gives us power.”

Ray can’t look at him. He’s had two months. Maybe Ray will believe the same things in two months, but he can’t right now.

“We’re in now,” Brad says quietly. Ray quirks an eyebrow. “There’s a network of people like us. Some of them are mutants, but a lot of them are people who want to help. People who have lost someone. They’ve given us intel and smaller missions, but we’ve never even met any of them until now.

“Nate’s made connections with people recently, and after what happened, he must have reached out to someone. They sent someone to look at you, the first week or so. They’re going to start helping us now. What happened with Ferrando is just the start of it, I guess. He’s not on our side, not really. Him coming to the safe house was more of a warning than anything, but. They’re starting something big.”

Ray almost forgot about Ferrando. It still doesn’t really make sense. Most of it doesn’t.

“Everyone else made it out,” Brad says. “Lilley got his nose broken by a drone, but that was the worst of it. And we got Craig out, too. The psychic. He’s not really all there anymore. The network is taking care of him.”

Suddenly the TV in the corner snaps on.

“Sorry!” Lilley yells from downstairs. “Sorry, my bad!”

Onscreen, Senator Blake walks up the Capitol building steps, handsome and stoic in his black suit and tie. He disappears behind the double doors and the camera turns to focus on another approaching senator.

“He looks tired, doesn’t he,” Brad says softly. He’s staring at the screen. “I hope he’s --” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “I don’t even know.” His gaze cuts away from the screen and back to Ray. “Wynn’s taking care of him. He’ll make sure he’s okay.”

The show cuts to commercial. Ray tries to stay focused, but his eyes won’t stay open.

“You should get some sleep,” Brad says, shifting closer.

 _Will you be here?_ Ray thinks, can’t say aloud, and Brad just smiles. Ray closes his eyes. Cool fingers smooth over his forehead.


End file.
